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INFORMATION SHARING AFTER

SEPTEMBER 11: PERSPECTIVES ON THE FUTURE

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND 

SECURITY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 24, 2004

Serial No. 108–52

Printed for the use of the Select Committee on Homeland Security

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html
SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY

CHRISTOPHER COX, California, Chairman 

JENNIFER DUNN, Washington 

C.W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., Wisconsin 

DAVID DREIER, California 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky 

SHERWOOD BOEHLERT, New York 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

CURT WELDON, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

PORTER J. GOSS, Florida 

DAVE CAMP, Michigan 

LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART, Florida 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

ERNEST J. ISTOOK, JR., Oklahoma 

PETER T. KING, New York 

JOHN LINDER, Georgia 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana 

MAC THORNBERRY, Texas 

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

JOHN E. SWEENEY, New York 

JIM TURNER, Texas, Ranking Member 

BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi 

LORETTA SANCHEZ, California 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

JANE HARMAN, California 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, New York 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

ROBERT E. ANDREWS, New Jersey 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

KAREN MCCARTHY, Missouri 

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, Texas 

BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, U.S. Virgin Islands 

BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina 

KEN LUCAS, Kentucky 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

KENDRICK B. MEEK, Florida 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

JOHN GANNON, Chief of Staff 

STEPHEN DEVINE, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel 

THOMAS DILENGE, Chief Counsel and Policy Director 

DAVID H. SCHANZER, Democrat Staff Director 

MARK T. MAGEE, Democrat Deputy Staff Director 

MICHAEL S. TWINCHEK, Chief Clerk

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS

The Honorable Christopher Cox, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of California, and Chairman, Select Committee on Homeland 

Security ................................................................................................................. 1

The Honorable Jim Turner, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Texas, Ranking Member, Select Committee on Homeland Security ........... 4

The Honorable Sherwood Boehlert, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of New York ................................................................................................ 19

The Honorable Norman D. Dicks, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Washington ............................................................................................. 28

The Honorable Jennifer Dunn, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Washington ....................................................................................................... 6

The Honorable Jim Gibbons, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Nevada .............................................................................................................. 39

The Honorable James R. Langevin, a Representative in Congress From the 

State Rhode Island ............................................................................................... 42

The Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Texas: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 47

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 49 

The Honorable Nita M. Lowey, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of New York .......................................................................................................... 35

The Honorable John B. Shadegg, a Representative in Congress From the 

State of Arizona .................................................................................................... 44

The Honorable Curt Weldon, a Representative in Congress From the State 

of Pennsylvania .................................................................................................... 6

WITNESSES 

The Honorable James Gilmore, Chair, Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic 

Response Capabilities for Terrorism, Involving Weapons of Mass 

Destruction, ‘‘Gilmore Comission’’ and President, USA Secure ....................... 8

The Honorable R. James Woolsey, Former Director, Central Intelligence 

Agency: 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 10 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 12

Ms. Zoe ̈ Baird, President, The Markle Foundation 

Oral Statement ..................................................................................................... 14

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 16

APPENDIX 

Questions from the Honorable Sheila Jackson-Lee: 

Responses from the Honorable Jim Gilmore ..................................................... 52 

Responses from the Honorable R. James Woolsey ............................................ 52

Responses from Ms. Zoe ̈ Baird ............................................................................ 51

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INFORMATION SHARING AFTER 

SEPTEMBER 11: PERSPECTIVES ON THE 

FUTURE 

Thursday, June 24, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SELECT COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:39 a.m., in Room 

2322, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Cox [chairman of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Cox, Dunn, Boehlert, Smith, Weldon, 

King, Shadegg, Thornberry, Gibbons, Turner, Dicks, Cardin, 

DeFazio, Lowey, Norton, Jackson-Lee, Christensen, Etheridge, 

Lucas, Langevin, and Meek. 

Chairman COX. [Presiding.] The quorum being present, the Select Committee on Homeland Security will come to order. The committee is meeting today to hear testimony about the critical need 

to continue improvements in the area of terrorism-related information sharing. 

We have a truly exceptional panel of three distinguished witnesses, today. 

Governor Jim Gilmore served from 1999 until last year as chairman of the Congressional Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction. Governor Gilmore continues his focus on these issues as 

president of USA Secure, a consortium of technology and infrastructure companies engaged in homeland security-related businesses. He was, of course, governor of Virginia from 1998 until 

2002. 

The Honorable Jim Woolsey is a former director of Central Intelligence. He has many years of perspective on intelligence community reform efforts and the complications that entails. He also has 

many years of experience as a senior arms control negotiator at the 

Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Talks, the U.S.-Soviet Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, and the Nuclear and Space Arms 

Talks. 

Zoe ̈ Baird is president of the Markle Foundation, and has for the 

past several years chaired its Task Force on National Security in 

the Information Age. The membership of this task force was 

marked, in particular, by its political diversity and technological sophistication. She is also a member of the Technology and Privacy 

Advisory Committee that advises the Defense Department on using 

technology in combating terrorism. Ms. Baird was previously senior 
2

vice president and general counsel at Aetna and held senior positions at General Electric. 

Full disclosure also compels me to note that all of our witnesses 

are lawyers. Far more significantly, each of our witnesses knows 

the world of intelligence and information sharing as it really is, understands its complexities and has carefully considered where we 

must go from here. 

On behalf of the Congress and this committee, I want to thank 

each of you for sharing with us your insights today. You are, in a 

sense, preaching to the converted, of course. The members of this 

committee have from the start put preventing terrorism at the top 

of our listed priorities. That is making information sharing one of 

our preeminent concerns. 

The question remains: what form reform should take, and how 

we should accomplish it. That is, of course, precisely the question 

that will animate the 9/11 commission as it completes its work. 

And if the answer is clear and simple, it has just as clearly alluded 

all of us to date. 

The problem is as complex as it is vital and urgent. And let me 

stress the urgency. 

On September 11th, Al-Qa‘ida terrorists showed us, to our horror, that they were capable of exploiting a networked world against 

a U.S. government that was not networked. In less than 90 minutes, they brought down the Twin Towers of New York’s World 

Trade Center and breached the walls of the Pentagon, itself, turning it into an inferno. 

The toll, as we all know too well, was 3,000 innocent lives. And 

the terrorists succeeded, as we know, by exploiting the knowledge 

gaps that our stovepiped federal agencies had permitted to persist. 

And almost three years later, all must acknowledge that despite 

serious and sustained efforts by the responsible government agencies, we still do not have the level of timely, routine and unfettered 

information-sharing we know that we need to prevent terrorism 

and to respond to it as effectively as we must. 

The effort is not intellectual indulgence. It is not some administrative zero-sum game among executive branch agencies. Information-sharing in the post-9/11 world is job one. It is the irreducible 

minimum that we must do to ensure that our government can meet 

our most fundamental national expectation. 

But using the authorities we, the people, conferred upon it, our 

government will safeguard us, our territory, and—this is critical—

our constitutionally based way of life. We have come to call that 

mission homeland security, and we can conceive of nothing more 

pressing. There is no higher national priority. 

The imperative of and challenges associated with informationsharing in the post-9/11 world draw people like our panelists today 

to deploy their expertise from much more lucrative pursuits in sustained and public consideration of how we can move critical information more efficiently to all of those, including state, local and 

competitive corporate entities who need it to met their own responsibilities within the overall homeland security mission. 

If we, with their assistance, succeed, it will have been by fundamentally shaking entrenched bureaucratic cultures, by challenging residual resistance and complacency. 
3

The task is well begun. Take a look at where we are. The 9/11 

Commission’s report will, like the joint inquiry’s report before it, 

take hundreds of pages to describe a very straightforward problem 

that the terrorists exploited to devastating effect. We did not know 

what we needed to know, and what we did know did not get to 

those who needed it in time to be useful. 

That is it. That is the problem that brings us here today. 

DCI Tenet acknowledged the urgency of this problem and its solution nearly two years ago when testifying before the joint inquiry 

into the 9/11 attacks. Here is what he said. 

‘‘We must move information in ways and to places it has never 

before had to move. We need to improve our multiple communications links, both within the intelligence community and now in the 

homeland security community. Now, more than ever before, we 

need to make sure our customers get from us exactly what they 

need, which generally means exactly what they want, fast and free 

of unnecessary restrictions.’’

Let us take a look at what has been done about it since the attacks, the big innovations. 

First, there is the Department of Homeland Security itself. 

Second, there is TTIC, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, 

a presidentially created interagency joint venture that is responsible for comprehensive analysis of all terrorist threat-related information. 

Third, there is the Terrorist Screening Center, another interagency joint venture. 

There is a fourth innovation, too. If DHS, TTIC and the Terrorist 

Screening Center are the new machinery in information-sharing, 

then the grease they will need to run smoothly is reflected in the 

March 4th, 2003, memorandum of understanding on information 

sharing. The attorney general, the director of central intelligence 

and the secretary of homeland security all signed this, binding 

their federal law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community 

and DHS itself. 

This memorandum of understanding imposes sweeping new minimum standards for routine information-sharing to implement provisions of the Homeland Security Act and the Patriot Act. 

The MOU requires that the secretary of homeland security be 

provided access to all information necessary for him to carry out 

the mission of the department. This reflects the language of the 

statute itself, which imposes upon the rest of the federal government requirements to provide information to DHS whether or not 

the department asks for it. 

It provides that the federal government should speak with one 

voice by requiring that, except in exigent circumstances, the secretary of homeland security approve federal dissemination of nonlaw enforcement analysis to state-, local-and private-sector officials. 

And it also requires that federal agencies generally disclose information they originate to other federal agencies, free of any originator controls or information use restrictions. 

That may all sound unremarkable. It is, after all, just applied 

common sense. But these are fundamental challenges to the status 

quo ante of 9/11. And our job in Congress, as in the executive 
4

branch, is to make sure that the requirements in that MOU are implemented fully and quickly. 

Here on this committee, we have from the very outset stressed 

the priority of prevention and its dependence on unfettered and 

timely sharing of accurate information on terrorist threats. That 

will continue, and I am happy to report that our efforts are as bipartisan as is our panel today. 

And what we do on this committee will never give those who look 

back on it in the future cause to suggest that we flagged in our 

oversight responsibilities or temporized in remedying the shortcomings we found. Because we all now agree that it is true, that 

what we do not know empowers our enemies, and what we do know 

will help defeat them. 

It is true that, in this new war, the ongoing battle for our future, 

knowledge is the very essence of power. And we know by hard experience that if information does not move, people may die. It is 

that simple. That is the lesson of 9/11. We simply must get key information to those who need it most, and we cannot be satisfied 

with inefficiency or delay. We must make happen what must be 

made to happen. 

We look forward to your perspectives and are grateful for your 

insights. 

And moving on with this same sense of urgency, I recognize the 

distinguished ranking member from Texas, Mr. Turner, for his 

opening statement. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a chart I would like to ask the chair to allow me to put 

up. 

Chairman COX. I would ask unanimous consent that the chart be 

admitted. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for 

scheduling what I believe, and I know we all agree, is one of the 

most critical issues that we could address on this committee. 

And I want to thank the witnesses for being with us. I appreciate 

the work that The Markle Foundation has done to try to provide 

some guidance on how to solve some of these intelligence-sharing 

problems. And I appreciate Mr. Woolsey and Governor Gilmore for 

your continued involvement in the public sector to try to help and 

advise and to lead us in the right direction. 

I think we all understand that coordination at the highest levels 

of our government on homeland security information-sharing is 

still, three years after 9/11, sorely lacking. 

I think we saw a little window into that problem just a few 

weeks ago when Attorney General Ashcroft and Secretary Ridge 

issued what amounted to contradictory public statements on the 

same day about the current threat from Al-Qa‘ida. They got together two days later and tried to remedy that with a joint press 

conference. 

But I think, as Chairman Cox said on that occasion, the whole 

incident suggests that the broad and close interagency consultation 

that we expect and which the law requires did not take place in 

that instance. 
5

So we were left with the public confused and still lacking in the 

basics, in terms of sharing information with the public regarding 

the nature of the Al-Qa‘ida threat. 

As the Markle report has indicated, as the Gilmore report has indicated, and as the soon-to-be-released 9/11 Commission report will 

point out, we are still falling short in three basic areas. 

One, in the collection of information and the sharing of information with state and local officials. 

Secondly, in synthesizing the counterterrorism analysis of the 

various and newly created intelligence fusion centers at DHS, DOJ 

and DOD. 

And thirdly, we are falling short in that the federal government 

sharing of information with our first responders in timely manner, 

which I think is an essential part of being able to respond in this 

country to preventing and responding in the event of a terrorist attack. 

So I thought the chart there would be useful, because what it 

shows you are the multiple lines of communication that now exist 

between the federal government and our first responders. This 

chart demonstrates how we are building separate, competing systems run by rival agencies to convey threat information to first responders. 

For example, at DHS, we have the Homeland Security Information Network. At DOJ, we have the Regional Intelligence Sharing 

System. At DOD, it appears that the Joint Regional Information 

Exchange System, better known as JRIES, is another channel of 

communication that will be in use. 

And it is also my understanding that the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, TTIC, is building out an on-line information system 

to reach first responders, as well. 

So despite our good intentions, I would submit that we are building multiple, parallel information-sharing systems that cause more 

confusion for first responders and fail to ensure that all information gets to everybody that needs it. 

In times of emergency, who will the first responders call on? Who 

will they rely on? Which information network will they turn to? 

These are all legitimate and important questions that the federal 

government needs to get a better handle on. 

The Markle Foundation has very aptly pointed out, in its own 

comprehensive report, that there are major weaknesses in how the 

executive branch defines the respective roles, responsibilities and 

authorities of the federal agencies involved in assessing and disseminating homeland security information. 

This lack of coherence is leading to turf battles between these 

agencies, gaps in the interagency information-sharing and analysis, 

and limited attempts to protect our civil liberties. We can and we 

need to do much better on managing interagency information-sharing. 

I think the Markle Foundation concept is one that we have to 

come to grips with. That is, we have to collect information in real 

time into a common database available to all of the relevant agencies and personnel at the federal, state and local level. And that 

information must be accessible to the relevant state, local and fed-
6

eral officials and personnel who need it. And it should be available 

based upon the classification to which they should have access. 

That concept has not been pursued by our government. And nobody, to my knowledge, other than what I have heard from The 

Markle Foundation, has seriously made an attempt to devise such 

an information-sharing system. 

It was in the 2003 State of the Union address that the president 

announced the creation of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, 

which was to, in his words, merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. The fact of the matter is that the CIA, the 

FBI, DOJ, DOD, DIA and DHS have all retained their own separate terrorist intelligence fusion centers. 

Now, you can argue that competitive analysis of intelligence is a 

healthy practice. But creating and maintaining multiple intelligence centers is, in my judgment, a recipe for continued confusion 

and failure to coordinate the work of these various centers and 

have very real consequences to our security. 

Mr. Chairman, it has been 30 months since 9/11, and it appears 

that we are still a very long way from solving what has been identified as the main reason that the federal government failed to detect and prevent that historic and unfortunate attack on our nation. 

Again, I thank our witnesses for being with us today. I thank you 

for your continued work and effort to solve the problems that we 

are addressing today. And I look forward to hearing from each of 

you. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. DUNN. [Presiding.] Thank you very much, Mr. Turner. 

Do other members have opening statements? 

Go ahead, Mr. Weldon. 

Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

I welcome our witnesses. I have worked with two of them in a 

very close way. I have not had the pleasure of working with Ms. 

Baird. Jim Woolsey is one of the outstanding public servants in 

this city, and it is a pleasure to welcome him here, expert on intelligence and other issues. 

And Jim Gilmore I am happy to see. I wrote the language that 

created the Gilmore commission, and I have worked closely with 

the Gilmore commission since its inception. If we had listened to 

the commission, who issued three reports before 9/11, and would 

have paid attention to the recommendations, we would have had a 

definite impact on the terribly tragic incident of 9/11. 

But I want to talk about this issue today, briefly. This hearing 

is about post-9/11, but I want to go through with my colleagues 

something the 9/11 commission would not touch. And I assume 

they would not touch it because it would embarrass the Clinton administration and it would embarrass the Bush administration. 

You see, my friends and colleagues, back in 1999, when I chaired 

the R&D subcommittee for the Armed Services Committee, we 

knew that data integration and data fusion was a challenge that 

had to be met. 

In fact, working with it then, at that time, Deputy Secretary of 

Defense John Hamre, he challenged me to take the model developed by the LIWA facility of Fort Belvoir, which is the Army’s in-
7

formation dominant center, which was stood up by each of the services, in this case the Army, to look at the capability of protecting 

the security of all of our defense classified information systems. 

When the Army went beyond that, in developing with Fort 

Belvoir, they brought in external sources of data unofficially. I tested that system in the summer of 1999, and was so impressed with 

it that I convinced John Hamre to go down there, and he, like I 

was, was also very impressed, to the point where he said, ‘‘Congressman, I agree with you. We need to create a national operations and analysis hub.’’

And to my colleagues, here is the brief. This brief was developed 

in 1999, two years before 9/11. The goal was to integrate 33 classified systems that the federal government was operating, because 

that is how many there are—and here are all the agencies—33 

classified systems, all the 3-letter agencies, all the agencies of the 

federal government, for one purpose: to have the ability to do data 

fusion, data analysis, for the issue of emerging transnational 

threats and dangers from terrorist acts. 

John Hamre, he said to me, ‘‘Congressman, I will pay for it. DOD 

will fund it. I do not care where it is located. But you have to give 

in so CIA and the FBI that they should, in fact, become a part of 

this.’’

Let the record show that on November 4, 1999, in my office, the 

deputy director of the CIA, the deputy director of the FBI, and the 

deputy director of the Department of Defense, John Hamre, met 

with me for over one hour and received this brief, which I ask 

unanimous consent to place in the record. This brief calls for the 

creation of a national threat and data fusion center. 

When we finished the brief, the CIA and the FBI said to me, 

‘‘Congressman, we do not need that capability. We do not need that 

capability.’’ We did not accept that. We put language in the Defense Authorization Bill, which I will also put in the record, calling 

for the creation of a national data fusion center in the 2000 defense 

bill. 

Again, no one took it seriously. This was one year before 9/11. 

Now, why the 9/11 Commission would not touch this, I am convinced, is because it would severely embarrass the previous administration but also this administration because we did not act on 

this recommendation until the president, in January of 2003, called 

for the creation of the TTIC. 

And so I am pleased to be here today. And I am pleased to discuss what we have done since then. But I want our colleagues to 

know that the Congress is out front on this issue. If we have taken 

the steps in 1999 and 2000, perhaps we would have had a better 

understanding of the way that intelligence data could be fused to 

understand emerging threats. 

Thank you. 

Ms. DUNN. I thank the gentleman. 

Does anybody else have an opening statement? 

All right, let us move then to our panel’s presentations. Why 

don’t we start with Governor Gilmore. We are happy to have all of 

you here today. Looking forward to your testimony. 
8

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMES GILMORE, CHAIR, 

ADVISORY PANEL TO ASSESS DOMESTIC RESPONSE 

CAPABILITIES FOR TERRORISM INVOLVING WEAPONS OF 

MASS DESTRUCTION ‘‘GILMORE COMMISSION’’ AND 

PRESIDENT, USA SECURE 

Mr. GILMORE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I am pleased to 

have an opportunity to be here today, particularly with these distinguished members of the panel. 

I am personally acquainted with most all of you and work very 

closely, of course, with the congresswoman and Mr. Boehlert, Mr. 

Gibbons and others who are here and Mr. Weldon, most particularly, on the Democratic side. I am well-acquainted with most of 

the members. Appreciate your thorough leadership in these areas, 

Mr. Turner’s wonderful opening statement. 

We actually had Congresswoman Christensen participate with us 

on a bioterrorism program that we put together just recently. 

So we appreciate the leadership of everyone. 

I want to highlight Congressman Weldon. He actually wrote the 

language that created the advisory panel to this Congress on terrorism and domestic response capabilities involving terrorism, 

weapons of mass destruction, and wrote it in 1998 and established 

the commission in the beginning of 1999. He has followed the commission like no other in Congress, has been very careful with his 

leadership. 

And, Congressman Weldon, we appreciate your leadership in all 

these matters. And hopefully, we have lived up to your hopes and 

aspirations for this legislation. 

It has been my pleasure to chair the commission since its inception, when I was asked by the Clinton administration Department 

of Defense to actually do that while I was still governor of Virginia. 

I was delighted to be invited to do it. 

I had been an intelligence agent in the Army intelligence back 

when I was in the service. In the 1970s, I had a high interest in 

the terrorism issues, so I was pleased to have the chance to work 

with the RAND Corporation as a staff organization and distinguished people from the responders community: police, fire, rescue, 

emergency services, retired general officers, intelligence people, epidemiologists, health-care people. It was truly a professional organization. It was my honor to chair that distinguished commission in 

their work. 

The work that we did was over a five-year period. This Congress 

actually passed a statute to create this commission for three years. 

It was to have its final report December 15, 2001. We issued our 

very first report at the end of 1999, at which time we assessed the 

threat, and were concerned and warned, at that time, that the 

chance of an attack in this country on the homeland was a very 

high probability. And in fact some of our language used the word 

‘‘inevitable.’’

In the second year, in 2000, we—and again, our commission 

never really looked back. It never attempted to blame anybody for 

anything. Our goal was to look ahead constantly and to try to provide this Congress with the best possible insight. 

In the second year, we focused our attention on the national 

strategy, the need for it to be federal, state and local, for the White 
9

House to have the proper facilities in place to create a national 

strategy and expressed great concern about the inability of the intelligence committee to share information either amongst itself or, 

frankly, up and down the chain between federal, state and local 

people—a cultural anathema which we believe exists to this day. 

The third report was actually completed and at the printer, in 

which we discussed five major areas: How do you use state and 

local people? What do you do about the health-care community, 

particularly with the threat of bioterror? What do you do about border control? How do you deal with the military in a homeland situation? And then, finally, the issue of cyberterrorism. 

And then the attack occurred while it was at the printer. The report was issued on time in December the 15th in 2001. And then 

this Congress, under the leadership of Congressman Weldon, extended the commission for two additional years. 

In the fourth year, we focused our attention virtually exclusively 

on the intelligence—well, that is too broad. But we especially focused on the intelligence concerns, recommended that there be a 

fusion center, which later became the TTIC. 

There was a debate in our commission for almost a year over the 

issue of whether or not we have a separate MI–5 organization to 

do intelligence work or rely on the FBI. As chairman, I have led 

the group that believed that the FBI should be required and forced 

to do it. Jerry Bremer, who had served four years on the commission, led the group that believed that the FBI could not do it and 

that MI–5 type of model was the better approach. And the commission adopted that, in fact, recommendation to the Congress. 

Then finally, we just issued our last report this past year, in 

which we tried to look out once again, to express grave concern 

after five years; to, at the same time, express the desire that we 

should rethink where we are trying to go and to try to somehow 

eliminate the fear and anxieties, and focus our attention on the 

civil freedoms aspects. 

The testimony that I believe I would give you today is a reminder 

that if we are going to address this issue in two pieces, which is 

prevent and respond—which I believe the Congress has expressed 

in numerous meetings and testimony that they are concerned 

about—is the recognition that vulnerability is really not threat. 

It needs to be remembered that everything, particularly in a free 

society, is vulnerable. You have vulnerabilities in a less free society, quite frankly. But threat is the intentions and capability of the 

enemy. They may want to attack vulnerable things and systems 

and people. But the question is, what do they want to do, what are 

their intentions and what are they capable of doing? 

And that brings intelligence to the fore. There is no way to address that kind of threat in any intelligent way, other than to focus 

our attention on the intelligence piece and to make sure that intelligence is available and coordinated and accessible. 

And finally, we have to deal with the issue of how we share intelligence and information and to put the proper structures into place. 

This is a big challenge, particularly with this committee has to deal 

with issues of a disparate and disperse nature of the intelligence 

organizations. On the response side, we need to focus our attention 
10

once again on harmonizing federal, state and local people into a 

unified program. 

So with all this being said, it has been our pleasure to represent 

the Congress and to advise you for five years on these areas. This 

committee, we believe, is focused and central. We are proud of the 

work that you are doing. We recommended a central type of committee that would be in a position to address these issues; that is 

what this committee is. We appreciate your work and look forward 

to your leadership in the years ahead. 

Ms. DUNN. Thank you very much, Governor. 

We will next move to former director of the CIA, the honorable 

James Woolsey. 

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMES WOOLSEY 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

If it is all right, I will ask my statement to be inserted into the 

record, and I will use it as notes to speak from. 

It is an honor to be asked to testify before you today. I am going 

to talk principally about the likely substance and sources of information that might be shared, since I believe that the organizational structure and the procedure should probably be derived 

therefrom. 

First of all, in my judgment, this, what I call the long war of the 

21st century, which we are engaged in now—and by the way, I believe it will last for decades, like the Cold War—will not be dominated, the information about it will not be dominated by foreign intelligence, as was the Cold War. 

One learns very little about terrorists by looking at them with 

satellites. They have learned to avoid the links that we intercept, 

partially because of press leaks. And penetrating terrorist cells, 

particularly decentralized terrorist cells, is extraordinarily difficult—much, much harder than penetrating the KGB or the Warsaw Pact general staff. 

We will get continuing information from intelligence liaison; that 

is, information provided by friendly intelligence services in the 

Middle East and elsewhere. But we are unlikely to be able to have 

the advantage that we had in Afghanistan of taking over Al-Qa‘ida 

files, disk drives, senior Al-Qa‘ida prisoners and the rest. 

So if intelligence liaison is a source of much of our foreign intelligence, we are going to find that there are people who are in this 

business of decision-making who, for example, do not agree with 

the MOU of March, that there should be no restrictions on originator controls, or so-call ORCON restrictions on intelligence. 

It is not the CIA principally you need to worry about here, it is 

the intelligence services of such countries as friends in the Middle 

East. Because any country, when they provide information to the 

United States and we to they, say, ‘‘By the way, this will not go 

beyond the following four people, and we are willing to provide it 

to you on that basis, but not otherwise,’’ so very broadly disseminated information that violates those understandings with foreign 

intelligence services, will mean that those foreign intelligence services will not for long be providing information. 

Second, it is important to realize that the 9/11 plotters worked 

principally in the United States and Germany, two countries where 
11

the United States foreign intelligence services essentially do not 

spy. They knew what they were doing. They knew about civil liberties in Germany and the United States. 

Although the CIA made a terrible mistake in not listing AlMidhar and Alhamzi, the two pilots of one of the flights, whom 

they were tracking in Malaysia in January 2000 and not putting 

them on a watch list for the FBI and the State Department, generally speaking, the information that was available, potentially 

available, on the 9/11 plotters was not information from traditional 

sources of foreign intelligence. 

So anyone who believes that in this long war of the 21st century 

against Islamist fanatics in the Middle East is going to be at all 

analogous to the Cold War, and that we are going to have a substantial flow of information from foreign intelligence and technical 

intelligence, I think is operating on a false premise. 

I believe that, furthermore, we are going to have to do a lot of 

our own vulnerability assessments. Some of the most sensitive intelligence, in a sense, about our own vulnerabilities will come from 

us, from people working on red teams, understanding the 

vulnerabilities of the electricity grid, the oil and gas pipelines and 

the like. 

And dissemination of that information will have to take place, 

but I think in very specific ways. Sometimes in a specific locality. 

If you have a vulnerability of the Golden Gate Bridge, a lot of people in San Francisco are going to be working on it, but people in 

the rest of the country do not need to know much about it. If you 

have a vulnerability of toxic chemical production and delivery, people in the chemical industry and the railroads will need to know 

about it, but probably not others. 

Now, that is self-generated vulnerability information, not really 

intelligence, in a sense, but I think very important information. 

I think that it is very important for us to realize that we are at 

war with Islamists from two sides of Islam. 

And I say ‘‘Islamist’’ to connote a totalitarian movement 

masquerading as a religion. I believe that Hezbollah and their supporters in the Iranian government, that Al-Qa‘ida and their supporters inside Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, are about as much 

Muslims as Torquemada was a Christian. And in order to denote 

that, I use the term ‘‘Islamist’’ rather than ‘‘fundamentalist Muslim’’ or otherwise. 

But we are going to have for some time a nationwide problem 

with respect to Islamists, particularly from the Sunni side of Islam. 

And much of the useful information that we will obtain I think will 

be by first responders, by state and local law enforcement. 

This is one of the main reasons why I believe it is important to 

leave the FBI in the lead. I agree with Governor Gilmore on this 

point, because they have a long history and background of dealing 

with state and local government. 

It is true that their culture in the bureau is more, certainly, one 

of law enforcement, of grabbing one of the 10 Most Wanted, rather 

than long-term espionage penetration operations, but they have 

done the later twice successfully, once with the American Communist Party and once with the Mafia. 
12

So I think the jury is still out, but at least for the time being 

I think we should stay with the FBI’s responsibility. 

Let me close by simply noting, the last page or so of my remarks 

express that I believe one of the most important sets of intelligence 

information we will deal with in this whole area is counterintelligence information, and that is information about Islamist penetration of American institutions and presence in the United States. 

That sort of information is not wise to disseminate widely. I 

speak to you as the DCI who was on duty when we caught Rick 

Ames. And I rather imagine that those in the FBI who were on 

duty when Hanssen was apprehended would have a similar 

thought, that there were at least some aspects in both the bureau 

and the agency of internal information-sharing that were substantially too broad. And most counterintelligence officials on that sort 

of information think rather hard about the proposition that it 

sometimes is better to restrict information flow rather than broaden it. 

I think we have to realize that, in this world we live in, sometimes important objectives—disseminating information properly 

and keeping it away from those who should not have it—conflict 

just as, unfortunately, sometimes liberty and security conflict. 

And what we are going to need to do in the interests of doing 

the right kind—and in many cases, it should be extensive—of information-sharing, what we are going to have to do is make case-bycase determination of the types of information, what the source is 

and how we can disseminate it effectively without running into 

some of the problems of disseminating some types of information 

too widely. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The statement of Mr. Woolsey follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF R. JAMES WOOLSEY

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, it is an honor to be asked to testify 

before you today on ‘‘Information Sharing After 9/11: Perspectives on the Future’’. 

Rather than deal with issues of organization and procedure related to information 

flow in these opening remarks, I thought it might be useful if I shared with the 

Committee some thoughts about the likely substance and sources of information 

that might be shared, since I believe that organization and procedure will be heavily 

influenced thereby. We need to understand what we are sharing and why before we 

design a system. 

First, I think that the source of information about vulnerabilities of and potential 

attacks on the homeland will not be dominated by foreign intelligence as was the 

case in the Cold War. As contrasted with, say, the type of ICBM likely to be installed in a Soviet silo one learns very little about terrorists by trying to look at 

them with satellites. Further, although we once had some good sources via signals 

intelligence about terrorism, the terrorist groups have learned to stay away from 

many types of communications that might be intercepted and to communicate only 

very vaguely on others—in part the result of US media having broadcast such stories as, e.g., how we were listening to bin Laden’s satellite telephone. And it is very 

difficult to penetrate terrorist cells with spies—much harder than, say, penetrating 

the KGB or the General Staff of the Warsaw Pact. 

We have obtained important information on terrorism by our military success in 

Afghanistan and we do, and will, obtain much useful material via liason with foreign intelligence services. But the very disruption of Al-Qa‘ida’s overall command 

structure in Afghanistan has meant that we are dealing with a group of individual 

cells even more than in the past—even less likely to be penetrated. 

It should also be remembered that the 9/11 plotters made their preparations principally, although not exclusively, in the US and Germany. US foreign intelligence 

agencies basically don’t operate here (the circumstances in which they could assist 

the FBI under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are quite limited) and in 
13

Germany they would rely on German authorities. The terrorists understood us well, 

and so they lived and planned where we did not spy. 

Thus if anyone is constructing organizations and procedures for intelligence sharing based on the assumption that there will be a flow of foreign intelligence dealing 

with terrorist threats to the homeland that is at all analogous in volume and importance to what flowed about the USSR and its allies during the Cold War, I think 

he is building on a false premise. 

Instead, in my view, we should focus heavily on how best to share two sorts of 

information about our vulnerabilities and potential terrorist exploitation of them. 

One source will be our vulnerability assessments, based on our own judgments 

about weak links in our society’s networks that can be exploited by terrorists—e.g. 

(to mention two that have been widely discussed in official publications) dirty bombs 

in shipping containers, or transformers in the electricity grid. We need to do this 

sort of analysis systematically and, where possible, without widespread dissemination of our judgments beyond those whose help is needed to make these links more 

resilient. Sometimes this will involve a number of people in a specific local area, or 

in a specific industry—the extent and method of sharing this sort of information will 

depend on the vulnerability and the steps we need to take. We cannot, of course, 

make ourselves wholly invulnerable to attack, but we can take away (or make far 

less lucrative) a number of the more attractive targets for terrorist attack. 

A second source will be domestic intelligence. 

How to deal with such information is an extraordinarily difficult issue in our free 

society. Not only are our borders extremely open, even with some added post-9/11 

restrictions, to legally-traveling workers, students, tourists, and many others, but illegal access to the US is of course very widespread. 

Further, if we focus for purposes of this discussion only on the Middle East, we 

must over the long run prepare to deal with terrorists from at least two totalitarian 

movements masquerading as religions: (a) Islamists from the Shi’ite side of Islam’s 

great divide, such as Hezbollah, and those who support them, such as the government of Iran; and (b) Islamists from the Sunni side of Islam, such as Al-Qa‘ida, and 

those who support them, such as wealthy individuals in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf 

and some portions of the Saudi Wahhabi religious establishment. 

Concentrating on the second group as the most immediate problem, we know from 

the FBI raids on terrorist financing operations such as those in Herndon, Va., and 

on cells such as the one uncovered in Lackawanna, NY, that we have a nationwide 

problem from Sunni Islamists. The difficulty of penetrating and learning of the efforts of such groups is very great. Much of what needs to be done involves cooperation with local law enforcement. Only an effective local police establishment that 

has the confidence of citizens is going to be likely to hear from, say, a local merchant in a part of town containing a number of new immigrants that a group of 

young men from abroad have recently moved into a nearby apartment and are acting suspiciously. Local police are best equipped to understand how to protect citizens’ liberties and obtain such leads legally. In my judgment, on these important 

issues the flow of information sharing is likely to be more from localities to Washington rather than the other way around. 

It is first and foremost because of their history of working closely with local law 

enforcement that I believe we should leave the FBI in the lead with respect to domestic intelligence collection for the present. If the Bureau turns out not to be capable of refocusing a major share of its effort on domestic intelligence collection regarding counter-terrorism, a step that will to some extent require a change in the 

culture of a major part of the Bureau, then we will perhaps need to visit the notion 

of establishing an American version of Britain’s MI–5. But I do not believe we are 

yet at that point. 

Second, we will need to mesh the above sort of information flow from the grass 

roots with work being done at the national level. Among the most important national level efforts will be counter-intelligence—particularly understanding the activities in this country of individuals and institutions funded by radical Saudis and 

others in the Gulf, often allied with the most virulent clerics within the Wahhabi 

movement in Saudi Arabia. Not all Wahhabis or angry wealthy Saudis who give 

large sums to radical causes here or elsewhere have in mind supporting particular 

terrorist operations by Al-Qa‘ida and its affiliates. But not all angry German nationalists of the 1920’s and 1930’s became Nazis—yet that was the soil in which Nazism 

grew. And it is in the angry soil fertilized by Wahhabism and a segment of the 

Saudi establishment that Sunni Islamist terror has grown—with substantial help 

from the some $70 billion that the Wahhabis and their allies have spent in the last 

quarter century or so to spread their hatred around the world, including here. 

I would close by noting that the widest dissemination of information, particularly 

regarding our vulnerabilities or counter-intelligence, is not always the best policy. 
14

In the aftermath of the Ames and Hanssen cases I am sure that both the Agency 

and the Bureau wished that at least some aspects of their internal information 

sharing had been more restrictive, not less so. 

In this context I would call the Committee’s attention to a recent report of what 

may well have been an unintentional omission on a form, but which raises the issue 

of how important it is to make careful judgments about how widely information is 

disseminated. In a piece in Salon.com day before yesterday, June 22, by Salon’s 

Washington Correspondent, Mary Jacoby, it was reported that ‘‘[t]he policy director 

for the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence division was briefly removed 

from his job in March when the Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered that he 

had failed to disclose his association with Abdurahman Almoudi, a jailed American 

Muslim leader. Almoudi was indicted last year on terrorism-related money-laundering charges and now claims to have been part of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah.’’ The article adds that the individual who was temporarily removed’’. . . has access to top secret information on the vulnerability of 

American seaports, aviation facilities, and nuclear power plants to terrorist attacks.’’ 

It further adds that the Bureau had discovered that the individual’’. . . had failed 

to list on security clearance documents his work in 2001 with the American Muslim 

Council. . . an ‘‘advocacy group, which was controlled by Almoudi [and] has been 

under scrutiny in an investigation of terrorism financing. . . .’’ 

The point is to get information to all those who need it, but only to those who 

need it and who can securely be trusted with it—unless by tear-lines and other techniques the information can be effectively declassified. It will always be the case, 

however, that you can make a better judgment about the weight you should give 

to intelligence of any variety the more you know about its source. And the more 

source information is disseminated, the more likely it becomes that the source will 

be compromised. Effective sharing of intelligence with those who can use it is a 

major and important objective, and so is avoiding the risk of compromising sources 

or vulnerabilities. Sometimes important objectives (liberty and security, e.g.) conflict 

more than we would wish. Each case of sharing, or not sharing, requires careful decision-making. There is no substitute for that. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman COX. [Presiding.] Thank you for you statement. 

Ms. Baird is recognized for her statement. 

STATEMENT OF MS. ZOE ̈ BAIRD, PRESIDENT, THE MARKLE 

FOUNDATION 

Ms. BAIRD. Thank you very much. It is a real privilege for me 

to be here with these panelists and with this committee, which has 

done such an extraordinary job in trying to grapple with the new 

challenges facing the country. 

Thank you very much for inviting me in to talk about the things 

that we have been considering at The Markle Foundation. I would 

ask also that my statement be included in the record. 

As the chair has indicated, reports due out this summer from the 

9/11 Commission, from the Senate Intelligence Committee, as with 

the joint inquiry, are expected to be highly critical of our nation’s 

intelligence and law enforcement community in its ability to collect 

and share the needed information. 

We can predict that they will report that the systemic barriers 

to information collection and sharing that existed prior to 2001, 

September 2001, which has already so effectively been articulated 

by the chair and Congressman Turner as a critical failure prior to 

9/11, that those systemic failures exist today; they continue to exist 

today. 

A number of reforms are already begun to be discussed: the notion of creating a U.S. version of the British MI–5, the notion of 

creating a stronger director of national intelligence or DCI with 

stronger powers, which members of this committee have been considering in the Intelligence Committee. 
15

The introduction of these structural reforms, I believe, are going 

to awaken Congress, the administration, America to some new very 

large questions, some questions, which I had the privilege of thinking about in the mid-1990s with Congressman Dicks and Congressman Goss on a commission that was set up to look at the future 

roles of the intelligence community. 

Those are issues of whether we can still continue to organize ourselves with the line at the border, with the separation between domestic intelligence and foreign intelligence. And I raise this now 

only to say that this committee, Congress moved with great speed 

to create the Department of Homeland Security, in fact, relative to 

other major governmental restructurings and reorganizations. 

But I believe that, as these new recommendations come out this 

summer for other major structural reform, we are going to find 

that some very, very large and fundamental questions need to be 

grappled with first. And the consideration of whether to reorganize 

ourselves along a line at the border with separate foreign and domestic intelligence or whether to reorganize ourselves in some 

other ways functionally are going to cause us to take some time to 

consider those recommendations. 

And I do not believe that we have the time to wait in improving 

our information-sharing. I believe it has been pointed out by all 

three of the members of this committee who have spoken that the 

urgency was there years ago, but certainly the urgency is there 

now. 

And we need to move quickly to correct the situation, because information is the key to our future security. Information collection, 

sharing, while protecting civil liberties, is the essence for providing 

for our nation’s security in this period of time where the biggest 

threats to our national security are from terrorists. 

So whatever reforms are pursued, we believe that we should create a system of information-sharing between the existing actors, 

and that that system can serve any future organizational structures. 

Using currently available technology, we believe that the government can set up a network that will substantially improve our ability to share information in order to prevent terrorist attacks, and 

that when this technology is paired with key guidelines that govern 

who gets access to the information, how it is used, that audit—so 

that someone like a Hanssen would not be able to go into databases 

where he had nothing to do, because, one, he would not have had 

the authorization, and two, we could have found that he was there, 

so he would not have felt it was an easy target—that this technology, coupled with strong policy guidelines, can quickly provide 

our country with both the ability to share information and the ability to enhance our civil liberties protections and our protections of 

sensitive requirements like sources and methods. 

We have proposed, through this bipartisan task force that includes people from the Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations with substantial expertise in national security, which includes people from the technology community with substantial expertise, both in traditional mainframe-type systems and new technologies, and includes civil liberties advocates, we believe that the 

most important issue the government has to face is getting an in-
16

formation-sharing network created, and that this, as Congressman 

Harman has called it, ‘‘virtual reorganization of government’’ can 

be done quickly and effectively and is a fundamentally new way of 

getting the government able to improve its decision-making. 

I would be happy, in the question-and-answer period, to talk 

about the elements of a SHARE network, as we call it, that would 

meet these goals, but we do believe that it is achievable and can 

be done very quickly. 

So I would just close with saying that there are a few key features of a network to work. It has to be decentralized, which means 

that information has to go out to the local people, whether it is a 

local FBI field agent or a local police department, as well as come 

in from them. Because they will see things that, if put together 

with information collected by more central authorities tasked by 

the FBI or the CIA, will make sense, will create a picture that we 

would not otherwise see. 

We can do that using technology to provide authorization and 

permissioning and not create the kind of risks that Jim Woolsey 

and other have alluded to. And we can do it through things like 

minimizing, eliminating, the names of individuals until there is a 

demonstration of a need to know someone’s name. We can do it in 

a manner that protects civil liberties. 

So I thank you very much for having me here, and I am very 

happy to answer your questions. Thank you. 

[The statement of Ms. Baird follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF ZOE ̈ BAIRD

Good Morning, Chairman Cox, Congressman Turner and members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. 

Reports due out this summer from the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9/

11 Commission are expected to be highly critical of our nation’s information collection and sharing capability. As we await the release of these reports, we can predict 

one of their findings with near certainty: That systemic barriers to information 

sharing, which seriously hampered the efforts of our nation’s intelligence agencies 

prior to the September 2001 terrorist attacks, still exist today. 

A number of recommendations have already been made about what further reforms are needed to better equip our government in the fight against terrorism. 

Some have recommended an American domestic intelligence agency, similar to Britain’s MI–5, to improve collection and analysis of intelligence at home. Others have 

advocated the creation of a Director of National Intelligence (DNI) with greater authority than the current Director of Central Intelligence, to direct and coordinate 

the entire intelligence community. 

Once the debate begins in earnest, we will find ourselves grappling with a number 

of very complex questions. For example, does the ‘‘line at the border’’—the different 

rules for collecting and handling of intelligence depending on whether it is foreign 

or domestic—a line which has been eroded need to be substantially reconsidered? 

Must we find new ways to protect critical interests like sources of information or 

the privacy of our people because the line at the border or classification systems prevent us from fully understanding terrorists’ intentions and capabilities? 

It will take time to determine the right course of action on proposals for an MI–

5 or an DNI, and once that course has been plotted, implementing any structural 

reforms could take years. But we do not have the time to wait to improve information collection and sharing. We need to impress upon responsible officials the urgency of this task and we need to act now. The actions we take can accelerate the 

ability of any agency organization, present or future, to improve our security. 

Fortunately, by capitalizing on America’s technological capabilities, we can begin 

to make our nation safer. Using currently available technology, the government can 

set up a network that streamlines operational and decision-making processes and 

substantially improves our ability to share information in order to prevent terrorist 

attacks. And when paired with clear guidelines to govern the system and effective 
17

oversight, the use of information technology can also be the best way to protect privacy and civil liberties. 

For the past few years, I have had the privilege to convene the Markle Foundation’s Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. The Task Force, comprised of leading national security experts from the administrations of Presidents 

Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, as well as widely recognized experts on technology and civil liberties, was created to focus on the question of how best to mobilize information and intelligence to improve security while protecting established 

liberties. In fact, one of our unifying principles is that information—managed 

through information technology—is the key to enhancing security. 

In our most recent report, Creating a Trusted Information Network for 

Homeland Security (http://www.markletaskforce.org/), the Task Force recommended the immediate creation of a Systemwide Homeland Analysis and Resource Exchange (SHARE) Network, which would foster better analysis and sharing 

of information among all relevant participants at every level of government, with 

built-in practical and technological safeguards for civil liberties. Or, as one of your 

own Committee Members, Congresswoman Jane Harman, has called it, a ‘‘virtual 

reorganization of government.’’

The SHARE Network would represent a fundamentally new way of using information to facilitate better, faster decision-making at all levels of government. It has 

several key features: • SHARE is a decentralized, loosely coupled, secure and trusted network that 

sends information to and pulls information from all participants in the system. 

Such an approach empowers all participants, from local law enforcement officers 

to senior policy makers. 

• SHARE is based on the concept of ‘‘write to share.’’ Instead of the Cold War 

based culture that placed the highest value on securing information through 

classification and distribution restrictions, SHARE recognizes that sharing information makes that information more powerful because it links it to other information that can complete the picture. SHARE moves from a classification 

system to an authorization system. By taking steps like incorporating ‘‘tear 

lines’’ in document formats, SHARE would encourage reports that contain the 

maximum possible amount of sharable information. 

• SHARE is a hybrid of technology and policy. The system would use currently 

available technology to share and protect the information that flows through it. 

And when paired with clear guidelines that would determine the collection, use 

and retention of information and who should have access to information, it can 

both empower and constrain intelligence officers, and provide effective oversight. Such an approach is also the best way to protect privacy and civil liberties. 

• SHARE allows for vertical and horizontal co-ordination and integration. Information would be able to flow not just up the chain of command, but also to the 

edges of the system. 

• SHARE enables analysts, law enforcement agents and other experts to find 

others with common concerns and objectives, to come together in shared workspaces, to form ‘‘virtual’’ communities to exchange information and ideas. 

While those are just a few of the technical and policy features of the SHARE Network, I think it would be useful to give you a real world illustration of how the system could actually operate. 

Say a field agent at the Chicago FBI office and a CIA operative in Kabul become 

aware of separate leads that if put together might point to a bio-warfare attack in 

Chicago. Under the current system, reports from these two agents are unlikely to 

have enough actionable information to be moved through the system. However, 

using the SHARE Network, these reports would be linked through similar key 

words such as ‘‘virus’’ and ‘‘Chicago’’ or other linking tools. Instead of being housed 

in classified files and filing cabinets at the CIA and FBI, these reports would be 

distributed electronically to people who should see them. They also would be posted 

and available to be pulled by network participants with a particular interest. An 

analyst at TTIC, for example, might see both reports, contact the CIA and FBI 

agents and others to discuss their reports, begin to connect the dots and define actionable objectives. The FBI, CIA, and TTIC players could form ‘‘a virtual task force’’ 

by reaching out to other relevant agencies and individuals, perhaps at Department 

of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control or a local police department, 

for more information. And they could organize the work themselves, without losing 

time or going to their superiors in Washington for approval. 

Based upon their discussions, this group could now create actionable intelligence 

for their agencies: the CIA might elevate the information to a higher level, to the 

director, or perhaps up to the president. Through local contacts, the FBI would have 
18

the option of notifying local police, so they could watch for activities related to a 

potential plot. 

Meanwhile, because access to certain kinds of personally identifiable information 

would be restricted, and systems built in to verify the identities of those permitted 

access, we will have improved information sharing while better protecting our privacy and civil liberties. 

Members of our Task Force have met with a number of officials at federal government agencies regarding our recommendations—some repeatedly—and have seen a 

high level of interest. In fact, a number of government agencies have been moving 

to direct the creation of processes that use key elements of the SHARE Network. 

The FBI, for example, has taken a number of positive steps in developing its new 

information sharing policies, including adopting a potentially extremely important 

policy of ‘‘writing for release,’’ which encourages tear lines and ‘‘shar[ing] by rule 

and withhold[ing] by exception’’. 

TTIC’s posting of intelligence reports and other items on ‘‘TTIC Online,’’ although 

not broadly available, is a step toward the kind of sharing we contemplate. And the 

Homeland Security Information Network, currently being developed by DHS, could 

strengthen the flow of real-time threat information to state, local, and private sector 

partners if they plan to share adequate information. 

While this progress is positive, an agency-by-agency approach is not adequate. Individual agencies can only go so far before they confront obstacles to sharing with 

other agencies of the federal government or with state and local actors, not to mention the difficulties involved in working with private sector entities. In order for this 

networked approach to succeed, a national framework, such as our proposed SHARE 

Network, is critically needed. 

Members of Congress can contribute to our nation’s ability to prevent and respond 

to terrorism by calling for the creation of an information sharing network with the 

characteristics of the SHARE Network. In our Report, we called for DHS to be designated the lead agency of an interagency, public-private process to establish the 

concept of operations for the network. Policy guidelines need to be written that both 

empower government officials to share information and also strengthen protection 

of privacy and other civil liberties. Agency CIOs need to be given the direction, authority and budgetary commitments to build the network. CIOs also need to have 

the funds protected so that the funding is not reallocated. Agencies need to be encouraged to acquire information technology that is interoperable (across agencies, 

across systems, and with legacy systems), and has common data standards as well 

as security, access controls, identity controls, and audit capabilities. Availability of 

technology is not a hurdle to adoption of the SHARE Network; the hurdle is the 

manner in which agencies acquire technology. 

In addition, proposed and current information sharing initiatives such as the 

Homeland Security Information Network, TTIC, US VISIT and CAPPS II need to 

be jointly reviewed as to whether they support these network objectives. Otherwise, 

waste, stovepiping and redundancy will occur if they are not built according to a 

common concept of operations. 

The collection, use and sharing of information by government agencies needs to 

be guided by both Presidential directive and by Congressional oversight. We laud 

Congress’s commitment to establishing internal oversight mechanisms within the 

DHS, including a privacy officer and a civil rights and civil liberties officer. We encourage the further development of informal and formal means of congressional 

oversight of the government’s access to, use, retention, and dissemination of private 

sector data. 

Other government bodies have a role to play as well. The Technology and Privacy 

Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Defense, on which I served, recently built 

on the Markle Task Force Report and made further recommendations for processes 

to protect privacy and civil liberties, including requiring in certain circumstances 

that an agency articulate the relationship to terrorism of information they seek on 

U.S. persons, and use of the FISA court for domestic information collection in sensitive circumstances. 

Finally, as we have outlined in our Report, it will require continued engagement 

from the President himself, the heads of government agencies, as well as continual 

oversight from Congress to ensure follow-through. Indeed, agencies’ performance towards a virtual reorganization should be evaluated by Congress after a reasonable 

implementation time, using specific and clear objectives for improved information 

sharing, based upon the set of metrics in our Report. If an agency has not performed 

adequately, the President and Congress should consider making any necessary 

changes. 

While government migrates to the kinds of IT systems business has used for years 

to achieve the capabilities described above, there are immediate steps that can be 
19

taken to begin reaping the benefits of new business processes. We should immediately create electronic directories to link people in different agencies working on 

the same problem, to identify experts in the private sector and universities, and to 

indicate which agencies have information on subjects of interests. We should adopt 

clear rules empowering government officials to get the information they need from 

other agencies. We could begin by ensuring that detailees at intelligence fusion centers have online access to all information. To facilitate sharing, we need to revisit 

the application of the ‘‘need to know’’ principle. To protect privacy, these rules 

should allow access to information without identifying U.S. persons by name, and 

establish processes for learning identities when necessary. And, to ensure greater 

public and congressional confidence, we need clear guidelines on how people get 

their names off watch lists, and how they seek redress for adverse government actions. The US VISIT contract, the development of the Virtual Case File at the FBI, 

the ongoing work of the TTIC and the TSC all offer opportunities to achieve critical, 

immediate incremental reforms if they are required to serve a common vision instead of being developed in stovepipes. 

Implementing a system like the SHARE Network would allow agencies tasked 

with protecting our nation from terrorism to build information sharing into their 

overall mission before, and as part of, any major restructuring of our domestic or 

foreign intelligence agencies that Congress might undertake in the future. It would 

prevent information from being kept in agency silos, as too much still is, and would 

encourage analysts to push information to the edges of the system—to FBI and customs field agents, to police—instead of only moving information up the chain to the 

next level in an agency hierarchy or to a narrow set of analysts or operational personnel who are not allowed to share it with others. 

Information, managed through technology, is critical to enhancing our security 

while protecting important civil liberties. Information-sharing itself is not the goal; 

rather, it is the means by which we can most effectively enhance security and protect privacy, by maximizing our ability to make sense of all available information. 

The nation can never sufficiently harden all potential targets against attack, so the 

government must develop the best possible means to obtain advance warning of terrorist intentions through better intelligence. 

The network the Markle Task Force has proposed would substantially improve 

our ability to uncover threats and prevent terrorist attacks. The technology to create 

such a network exists and is used in the private sector every day. Given the proper 

priority in budgets and leadership, we believe that it is possible to develop and implement major steps immediately, and many key elements of the SHARE network 

in about eighteen months. 

Since September 11, many people in the government and the private sector have 

given a great deal of thought and effort to the problem of how our nation can use 

information and information technology more effectively to protect people from terrorism while preserving our civil liberties. Our Task Force has sought to contribute 

to the solution by providing the framework for a national strategy and an architecture for a decentralized system of robust information-sharing and analysis that 

makes the most effective possible use of information while instituting guidelines and 

technologies to minimize abuses and protect privacy. 

Thank you.

Chairman COX. Thank you very much for your statement. 

Thank each of you for your statements. 

The chair will now recognize members for questions that they 

may have. As is our custom, I will recognize those members who 

were present within five minutes of the gavel in order of their seniority on the committee. Those arriving after that time will be recognized in order of appearance. 

I recognize myself for five minutes. 

Let me begin by asking how each of you recommends Congress 

conduct proper oversight of whether the Department of Homeland 

Security, which, as we all recognize, is central to information-sharing, analysis and distribution, is getting the information that, by 

statute, it is supposed to receive. 

We all know that, even at the collection level, we do not know 

what we do not know. The entire Department of Homeland Security is, roughly speaking, in that position. The statue requires that 
20

even without a request, precisely because they do not know what 

they do not know, information should be provided to them without 

asking. 

How can Congress properly oversee whether that statutory mandate is being fulfilled? I would address it to each of the panel members. 

Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, I think that the leadership of the 

Department of Homeland Security wants to have good interaction 

and communication with the Congress. I have never heard anything except their desire to have a good working relationship and 

to share that information. 

Naturally, the committee has its budgetary power and authority. 

But I believe that a focus, putting the Congress into one focal 

point, which really is this committee, and any counterpart that it 

has in the Senate, gives at least the department a single place to 

go in order to communicate appropriate information. And that, I 

believe, is why this committee is so important, as creating that 

focal point. 

Naturally, within the structures of the Congress, you have to 

have good communication on the appropriations side, so that there 

is some overarching strategic view of what the Congress wants to 

do with the department. But once again, this committee, I believe, 

serves that focal point. But the Congress, itself, you can use its 

budgetary authority. But I believe that there is a good desire for 

interaction. 

Chairman COX. And let me ratchet this question up to make it 

clear where I think the toughest problem lies, because, Governor 

Gilmore, as you point out, to the extent that at least the House has 

organized itself so that there is focal point for oversight and authorization of this new department, we have accomplished that 

task. 

But the greater problem is that if we are trying to assist the department in fulfilling its statutory mandate, we have to make sure 

that all these other agencies of government, including the entire intelligence community, including law enforcement, are sharing the 

information that, by statute, they must share with the department. 

And that would require oversight that is even broader than the 

collaboration that we have put together here in the Congress to 

make this Homeland Security Committee. 

So what tools ought we to use? And I know you are each familiar 

with the tools of Congress. How might we deploy them, in order to 

make sure this job gets done? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, I do not think this can be done effectively without having some sort of a joint hearing in which representatives from the Department of Homeland Security and from 

the DCI and from the FBI are present, because the latter two are 

going to be the major sources of information from outside. 

Now, these could be difficult hearings. For example, if I am correct in my assessment and most of the information from foreign intelligence on a continuing basis is going to be from liaison services, 

from friendly services in the region, and each of them says, ‘‘No 

way, no how you are going to share this, CIA, with anybody,’’ we 

have a problem. 
21

I would think that executive session hearings, cooperative hearings with intelligence community and those responsible in the Judiciary Committee for the FBI, would be things that one might want 

to explore. 

But I do not see any way of really getting at this other than having the other agencies at the table and doing it in a classified environment. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. Will the gentleman yield to the Chair? 

Chairman COX. Certainly. 

Mr. BOEHLERT. I also serve on the Intelligence Committee, and 

this is something that concerns me. 

As the chairman said, you do not know what you do not know. 

If we had these hearings, joint hearings between Intelligence, 

Homeland Security behind closed doors, highly classified, but we do 

not know what we do not know. 

So if DCI says, ‘‘We are sharing all pertinent information with 

the secretary of homeland security,’’ how do we know if he is not 

telling the truth? How does the secretary of homeland security 

know he is not telling the truth? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, in a classified environment, and with Intelligence Committee members or chairman present, one could presumably ask more specific questions, such as, ‘‘Have you gotten 

anything in the last 12 months from the government of Jordan? If 

so, what?’’

I do not think a vague sort of a general question, ‘‘Have you 

given us everything that we ought to have?’’ will produce much 

more than, ‘‘Sure.’’

But I think if one wants to get into this, that is the sort of question I think you have to ask, because much of this information, if 

it is foreign intelligence—now, the FBI is a different question, but 

much of this information, if it is foreign intelligence, I think will 

come from liaison services. And each one of those is a unique and 

delicate relationship. 

Ms. BAIRD. I am going to take a little contrarian position on that 

question. I think it is very difficult for Congress to know whether 

particular information is moving. I think you need to be much more 

focused on the rules for moving information and the process. 

For example, if this committee or Congress called on the Department of Homeland Security to take responsibility for creating a 

public-private process to develop a concept of operations for how information moves across all these agencies, what are the requirements of what the FBI needs to share with DHS, and how does it 

get shared, and uses the technology to automatically—the rules require that the technology automatically moves information if people 

have certain levels of authorization to receive it, and then there is 

an audit that you can build in both with technology and with people to see whether or not that has happened. 

And so this committee could, through requiring DHS to create a 

process for developing the concept of operations for informationsharing between agencies, impact whether or not there are rules in 

place and automatic tools for auditing and overseeing the implementation of those rules that is much more comprehensive than 

the committee could touch on by looking into specific instances of 

information-sharing. 
22

The second thing that I think you could do is create—whether it 

is through joint hearings or some kind of inquiry into the information-sharing programs of different agencies that are being set up to 

see to what extent they are being set up under common frameworks that allow sharing between them. 

So, for example, you have even just within the Department of 

Homeland Security the US–VISIT program, which is going to have 

billions of dollars put behind it, the Homeland Security Information 

Network, the CAPPS II program, which is struggling to find its 

way but will and probably has been very costly, even within that 

agency. But then you also look to the FBI and the development of 

the FBI’s virtual case file and the watchlist information. 

And you could have these various programs in front of the committee or the committee could consult and look at the various programs and review them jointly and see whether or not they are 

being set up to make it possible to even share information between 

these programs or whether or not the money is being put into 

stovepipe programs where the information will not get shared as 

part of a system. 

So I would encourage you to think that your most powerful role 

would be systemic and one which influences the process of information-sharing, rather than an inquiry into specific information and 

whether it is moved. 

Mr. GILMORE. Mr. Chairman, may I just add just sentence or 

two—

Chairman COX. Yes, Governor Gilmore, please. 

Mr. GILMORE. —if I could? 

First of all, I concur with Ms. Baird’s view that the structural 

oversight is an appropriate place for the committee to look. But, in 

a direct answer to Congressman Boehlert’s, you do not know what 

you do not know, but you can know what you want to know. 

And that means that you have to have a committee that is 

steeped in expertise and works with this on a constant basis and 

understands what you consider to be the appropriate lines of inquiry. 

You can know what you want to know because of your expertise. 

That is the importance of centralization of this thinking into a committee such as the one that we are before here today. 

And then through the use of the vehicles that the director and 

Ms. Baird has talked about, then you can probe as to whether or 

not what you think is important is, in fact, being submitted to the 

department. 

Chairman COX. Thank you very much. My time has expired. 

Mr. Turner? 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Baird, in your report and your statement, you mention what 

I think is probably the key to accomplishing the things we are not 

talking about, when you suggest that we need a series of presidential executive orders to carry out the objectives and to establish 

the guidelines for the agency’s collection and use and sharing of information. And Mr. Woolsey raised those issues. 

And I think one of our dilemmas is that the whole concept of the 

collection and use of intelligence has changed, because, as you said, 

much of the information we need to collect, it is available inter-
23

nally—our own vulnerabilities in sharing from the private sector, 

with the government, the ability to take foreign intelligence and 

limit its accessibility, and yet to be able to share what you can 

down through the FBI and even into local law enforcement. And we 

have never had to do that before, in terms of the intelligence community. 

So we have a multitude of players. And now, as you see from the 

chart, we have developed a multitude of federal agencies charged 

with similar responsibilities. 

And as you said, I believe, Mr. Woolsey, your recommendation 

was to leave the FBI in charge of contacting, working with these 

local officials, because, as you said, we all know they have done it 

for years. And yet, the Congress laid the Department of Homeland 

Security right in there beside them and said that it is your responsibility to communicate with local folks and local agencies. 

And in our work on this committee, we see that interplaying already, because DHS is trying to communicate with local officials, 

and we have briefings from TTIC periodically. And on the same 

day that we get a briefing from TTIC, I will get a memo in my office in my district in Texas from the FBI telling me something else, 

something different about the threat that we currently face. 

So the key, I think, as you suggested, Ms. Baird, we have to get 

to the point where the one person who can bring all this together 

will do it, and that is the president. Because our agencies are going 

to continue to build stovepipes. In many ways, we mandate some 

of them to be built. And until we put this on the table, and all the 

players are told through executive order that this is the system you 

must build, this system will never be built. 

And I really do think that if any members of our committee have 

not had a chance to hear The Markle Foundation recommendations, that I would urge each of you to ask Ms. Baird to come by 

and give you a briefing. 

Because you have to make the decisions about having a comprehensive, government-wide information collection and dissemination database, with all of the controls that you suggest, and accommodating the concerns that Mr. Woolsey has, and all of our agencies must rely on this single database for the collection and sharing 

of intelligence. And those in the high-tech community tell me this 

can be done. 

And until we do it, we are going to still stovepipe and, I suspect, 

spend a whole lot more money, taxpayer money, and not get the 

job done that we could get done if we had approach it correctly. 

And along the way, all these policy decisions about who gets to 

share what and all those decisions have to be made. And as I understand, your statement of the day, Ms. Baird, those kind of 

things have to be contained in presidential executive orders as 

well. 

Am I fairly describing the concept that we are both mutually interested in pursuing, Ms. Baird? 

Ms. BAIRD. You are, and I thank you for describing it. 

And I thank you for the time you took to let us come in and show 

you a little computer-based visualization of how the system might 

work. And it would be a real privilege if anyone else would like us 
24

to come by and do that as well. We have done that with the committee staff. 

The one thing I might expand on is the issue of, you know, people are a little afraid of databases because of the civil liberties concerns. And we are not talking here, of course, about a single, you 

know, big super-computer sitting somewhere in the government 

with all the data in it on everybody in the country. 

We are talking about leaving information where it resides but 

having people pointed to it to find it because of common interests. 

We are talking about a decentralized system that allows people to 

communicate directly with each other and to use this, as the congressman has called it, a database—you have not sat where I did, 

talking about the Poindexter program, so you may not have quite 

as sharply in mind that sensitivity. But it is a notion of information moving where it needs to get quickly and of people being able 

to find information. 

So instead of having to play a game of Go Fish and sitting at 

your computer and saying, ‘‘Do you have any information on water 

reservoirs?’’ and sending that out to a lot of people or doing a 

Google or Yahoo search, our recommendations envision people having directories that tell them who is working on a problem in government at all levels of government, including state government, 

where some of our best work is done, at the state and local level. 

It is a system where you can find the people who are working 

on the same problem you are working on and a system where you 

can get information that has been written on an unclassified basis 

with the name extracted or the source of the information extracted. 

Because the database gives you access to all this information on 

an unclassified, or sensitive but unclassified, basis that enables you 

to know where to go to request more information or to dig more 

deeply. 

So I thank you very much for what you have said. I would also 

emphasize that something like this cannot happen. And we will 

continue to have unconnected dots in this country and continue to 

be unable to prevent terrorism if we do not have a common concept 

of how information gets shared across the government. 

The leadership has to come at the federal level. We have in our 

reports that the leadership has to come from the president. 

Forgive me for going on here, but I would make one other comment. Much of the concern about government programs that are 

really critical—we need to be able to screen airline passengers in 

some manner; we need to be able to correlate disparate bits of data 

that, when put together, does indeed tell us something and enables 

us to be smarter than terrorists. 

But much of the problem that has developed with the concerns 

about what happens to our civil liberties if we create these programs is that there has not been at a politically accountable, at a 

congressionally accountable level, a statement made of where do we 

fall in this accommodation of both security and civil liberties. And 

so you have very well-intended people in government developing 

programs, but they do not have the policy guidance from the political level. 

So that is another reason why it is really critical, in our judgment. And as I say, this is a very broad group of people from every 
25

administration in the last four. We concluded that is critical that 

the president take the leadership and call for the creation of a network like this and set the guidelines on what are the American values of this kind of system. 

Mr. TURNER. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman COX. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentlelady from Washington, the vice chairwoman of the full 

committee, Ms. Dunn, is recognized for eight minutes. 

Ms. DUNN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to ask you to address a broader question, if you would, 

please. There are several proposals floating around before the Congress right now, all of which are aimed at overhauling the intelligence community. 

For example, the chairman of the Intel Committee, Porter Goss, 

has suggested elevating the DCI and giving him or her a budget 

authority over the intelligence community. The ranking member, 

Jane Harman, has proposed developing a new position, a director 

of national intelligence, to oversee the intelligence community. 

If you were to come up with a plan to overhaul the intelligence 

community and its structure, what would that plan look like? 

Mr. GILMORE. Congresswoman, I had a chance to review the two 

pending statutes that are before you, briefly, last night. And, to 

race right to it, I think that the real challenge that I would want 

to focus on is that if you are going to place somebody who is the 

director of national intelligence that you make sure he has the authority to run the show. If you are going to put the responsibility 

with him, then the accountability has to rest with him, and that 

means that he has to have the authority to do the job. 

I may not understand the statutes completely, but I had some 

sense of nervousness that, perhaps, some of the people at the second tier might end up actually with more knowledge and authority 

than the guy at the top, in which case he is a sitting duck. And 

I would be concerned about that and ask the Congress to make 

sure that that does not happen. 

I absolutely believe that budgetary authority is called for. In fact, 

when our commission first recommended a White House organization to develop a national strategy, we thought a central component 

of that would have been budgetary authority over all the different 

departments and all the different divisions in order to centralize 

some authority and power into one place to create that strategic vision. Likewise, I think that that model would work here, as well. 

The third piece that concerns me is—and I do not know how, exactly, how you deal with this; I think this is going to require a lot 

of work, frankly—is what do you do about the Department of Defense, where all the money is and all the power is and all the 

knowledge is and all the assets are. 

And they do not work for the CIA, and they do not work, presumably, for the DNI that would be under proposal here. And they do 

not work for the DHS either, which is the real challenge of having 

a separate department that focused on this area that does not have 

its complete hands around all of the elements and aspects of it. 

There are some suggestions in these statutes for some liaisons 

and some conferral-type of requirements and so on. And I think 
26

that the Congress just has to focus on that exceedingly carefully, 

in order to figure out how you are going to create that power structure in a way to centralize it at the director of national intelligence, 

which I think is a good idea. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Congresswoman, the director of central intelligence, in the 1947 statute, as the title suggests, is always supposed to have been head of the intelligence community. 

It is just that the community did not really exist in 1947. Not 

only were there no satellites, there were not any U2s, there was 

not any Defense Intelligence Agency, there was not any National 

Reconnaissance Office, there was not any National Geospacial 

Agency. 

And most of the National Security Agency was a collection of 

military service battlefield signals intercept operations. They had 

penetrated a very important Soviet code, so occasionally NSA 

would come up with something and give to the president, or after 

1947, I guess, the DCI. 

But the community really kind of was the CIA. And people did 

not think of there being two different jobs here. 

As time has gone on, the change in technology, the growth of all 

these other agencies, the fact that most of them spend most of their 

focus on matters related directly and immediately to military 

needs, has produced the situation in which the director of central 

intelligence is in an odd situation. He is sort of the chief executive 

officer of the CIA, which is down maybe a sixth or less of the community. 

And then with respect to the rest of the community, he is sort 

of the honorary chairman of the board. He does not have any executive authority in those other companies or agencies. He can kind 

of set the agenda and he can go out and visit them and he can help 

them get money sometimes, but he cannot move money around, he 

cannot move people around. 

So, furthermore, his need to respond to the Congress has grown 

rather. Even in 1993, Congress was in session 195 days, and I had, 

as DCI, 205 appointments on the Hill that year. I was up here an 

average of more than once a day. And I think the time requirements of oversight have gone up probably since then. 

So I think there are clearly two jobs there now. There is a job 

for someone who manages the CIA in the same sense that the director of the National Reconnaissance Office manages the NRO. 

And there is a job for someone who is the overall head of the community and has a lot to do with dealing with the Congress and the 

like. 

I believe that would probably help. That is more along the lines 

of Congresswoman Harman’s approach. 

I believe that that would help rationalize some things in the community, because it is very difficult in the current job for there to 

be a dispute between, say, NSA and the CIA and have the DCI settle it, because NSA, understandably, regards him as in the CIA’s 

camp, not as some neutral overall official. 

I rather like the idea that is in Congresswoman Harman’s bill of 

having some substantial aspects of joint authority between the secretary of defense and the DCI. Having a partner whose concerns 

and yours substantially overlap is not that bad in the Washington 
27

that we are all used to, with all of its rather more solid body-checking checks and balances. 

I had two excellent secretaries of defense to work with, Les Aspin 

and Bill Perry. For meetings that we co-chaired, I had a baseball 

cap made up with ‘‘Chairman’’ on it. And when I was chairing, I 

would wear it, and then I would put it on Bill Perry’s head, and 

he would wear it. We would just work together. 

It is not a good idea to ignore the fact that DIA—many aspects 

of the NRO, many aspects of NGA and many aspects of NSA actually are designed now to work closely with combatant commanders. 

And to put the DCI in as a sort of czar—the word ‘‘czar’’ gets used 

from time to time about having a director of national intelligence. 

And my reaction to that is that 500 years of rigidity and stupidity 

followed by the triumph of Bolshevism is not a good model for the 

management of the American intelligence community. 

Now, I do not like czars. But I think that one could craft the statute—and I think Congresswoman Harman’s is close—that has 

some important dual responsibilities, so that the DCI or DNI has 

more than he or she has now, a partnership is forced between Defense and that office, and the management of the CIA and its espionage and its analysis as an agency is separated out. 

One final point: I would keep the title of the overall person who 

is responsible for the community DCI, director of central intelligence. That is what it always was supposed to be. You can come 

up with a new title for the director of the Central Intelligence 

Agency out at Langley. Put the DCI, the overall head, somewhere 

downtown, hopefully in the Executive Office Building, and give him 

or her responsibility as a partner with the secretary of defense for 

overall resources and personnel and management of the community. 

Chairman COX. Yes, of course. 

Ms. BAIRD. I would comment briefly that I think the members of 

our task force, many of whom have testified on these issues of the 

DCI or an MI–5 would nevertheless take the position that the most 

important thing Congress needs to do is what Congressman Turner 

was describing, the development of an information-sharing across 

both the domestic and foreign intelligence capabilities and the military and state and local. 

And regardless of how you come out on the structural reforms 

that are needed, on the structural reforms, we are actually looking 

now in the next phase of our work at this issue of the line at the 

border and how information can be collected, both internationally 

and domestically, and shared in a way that is most effective. 

And I think the Congress will find that if it looks separately at 

a DNI or DCI and separately at an MI–5, as opposed to looking at 

the whole system, that you will be living in the last generation as 

opposed to the next generation, and that Congress will need to look 

at whether or not you maintain a separate foreign and domestic intelligence for good reasons, where are the areas where we cannot 

keep them separate. I mean, for example, just looking at airline 

passenger screening, which this committee has certainly been very 

close to, there is a question of whether we can treat our citizens 

and U.S. nationals differently than the way we treat people coming 

in from Europe and others. 
28

And these are new questions that we have to deal with. And will 

we forever be able to collect foreign intelligence without any of the 

rules that we have applied in collecting domestic intelligence, or 

will other countries expect that there will be some 

extraterritoriality of our civil liberties? So these are things that we 

are going to have to grapple with. 

Thank you. Thank you, Chairman. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Dicks, is 

recognized for eight minutes. 

Mr. DICKS. Thank you all, and I appreciate all of your good work 

and statements. 

And, Jim, good to see you again. 

Ms. Baird, I have not had your briefing yet, but I am looking forward to it. 

You know, I was on the Intelligence Committee for eight years 

and ranking for four years. And there is this whole concept of 

stovepipes and how do you share information. The examples I have 

seen where I really think you saw great sharing of information are 

the joint intelligence centers, which are set up when we are in a 

military conflict. We had one in Kosovo. We have one in Iraq. In 

fact, I think we visited it when we were there. 

It is in that concept where I think the best work is done. And 

when we are in a military operation, your national technical means 

come right into this center. HUMINT is brought in. You have a relationship with your allies. And it all comes together in one place. 

The military then can get a good picture of what is happening and 

make their decisions. 

It has always seemed to me if we could replicate that, where you 

have at the federal level people from the NSA, people from the 

CIA, kind of an overall center where information is shared. 

I like the idea of trying to share the information. I realize that 

what Jim Woolsey says about the restrictions on layers on information is going to be a problem. That will not be in the database, and 

should not be, I do not think. 

But I like the idea of trying to bring people together and share 

information at some level in order to make decisions. 

I completely agree with what Jim said about the information is 

going to come, I think, from the bottom up. I mean, the information 

that is important, as it did before 9/11—again, the information was 

there. We just did not act on it. 

This is one of the lessons I learned from my eight years on the 

Intelligence Committee. In situation after situation, we had the information. We just did not have the ability to act on it. 

You can share all the information you want, but if somebody does 

not take the initiative and say, ‘‘Wait a minute, this is a serious 

matter that deserves to be given higher attention.’’ I worry that 

you are still going to have a problem with a lot of data coming in, 

but who is going to make the decision and take the initiative to do 

something about it? 

Those reports that came in from the FBI field offices about these 

people training and that not being acted on is one of the greatest, 

I mean, to me, one of the most shocking failures that we had. And 

it was right there in the FBI, the New York office. It did not happen. 
29

The same thing happened in Desert Storm, Desert Shield. You 

know, all the information was there from the intelligence community, and yet we relied on government leaders in the area. And 

they convinced the president that somehow this was not going to 

happen. And we could not even get the deputies group back to 

make decisions. 

Again, I want to just focus on this one point. How do we improve 

that? Another thing that worries me, too. In talking to my people 

in the state of Washington, National Guard General Lowenberg for 

one, I do not get the feeling that there is the sharing of information 

between the federal and state level, mostly from the feds to the 

state. If you are going to try to encourage this sharing of information, you have to get the locals. 

And I agree, I think the FBI has the relationships locally to be 

able to work best with the local officials to get information and 

bring it back to the federal level. 

But how do we encourage that? How do we improve that relationship, which is just getting started now between the locals and 

the feds? Because that has not been there in the past. There has 

not been a lot—except at the FBI level, but with maybe FEMA or 

other agencies like that. 

But in terms of gathering information that is going to be important, how do we nurture that? 

Jim, do you want to take a crack at that? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, quickly, everybody cannot do everything. 

And Homeland Security strikes me as being in a situation, with a 

lot of exceptions to this analogy, somewhat similar to the State Department. It is a customer for intelligence, but it is also a customer 

that is involved in implementing the policies that come out of the 

intelligence, and it is a customer that does some analysis itself. 

The State Department does a lot of intelligence analysis itself in 

the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, a small, very effective organization, 100 or so analysts, and they do a very good job on a 

lot of things. 

It is intimately involved in implementing the results of deliberations about intelligence, but it is not principally in the business of 

stealing secretes. It collects intelligence, it collects information, 

through diplomats talking to people overtly. But the CIA is who 

steals secrets and operates covertly. 

On the domestic side of things, it seems to me that the institutions that are collecting intelligence, in the sense of secrets that 

people want to hide, probably are going to be the FBI working 

with, as I said in a statement, state and local police. 

Because it is the local policemen on the beat whom the merchant 

has enough confidence to say, ‘‘You know, there are these four 

young guys just in from Afghanistan or someplace, and they are 

acting kind of strange. You might want to keep an eye on them 

down at the corner.’’ The local police have a better feel for how to 

get information like that without intruding on people’s civil liberties, and building up confidence of their community and so forth, 

than anybody else. 

So I would see, in a very different kind of way, the FBI and the 

local police being the people who obtain information that some people may want to hide. 
30

Homeland Security is a consumer. It also does analysis. It also 

is involved in implementing decisions that are going to be made 

about pulling people together to do X or do Y, in somewhat the 

same way the State Department is. 

That is the genius of this chart, Congressman, is it sort of suggests that everybody is trying to do everything. And I do not think 

the system is going to work if everybody tries to do everything. 

Ms. BAIRD. Congressman, if I could comment and pick up on your 

use of the example of the Phoenix memo from the FBI agent who 

was concerned and thought someone ought to look at the issue of 

a foreign national taking flight lessons. 

And the kind of network that our group envisions is one where 

that Phoenix agent would not have to send that up the chain and 

take someone’s time to give them authority to say, ‘‘Yes, it is important enough to follow up on your hunch.’’ But instead, that 

agent would be able to find other people who were looking at people who were taking flight lessons or who have expressed concern 

about foreign nationals going to flight schools in the U.S. 

So that Phoenix agent would have found the Minneapolis agent 

and would have found perhaps a local police report from a local 

flight school in Seattle or Florida, talking about people taking lessons without caring about taking off or landing. 

And those people could create an informal group who work on 

the issue, who themselves, because of their own instincts and their 

own judgment, believe there is something to be worked on. 

Now, should they have access to data on individuals where there 

is no suggestion that they are involved in terrorism? Of course not. 

But those are the running rules of the system. You can protect civil 

liberties and make sure that a lot of local people do not get out of 

hand simply because they have access to information in the network. 

But I do not believe that you will ever get the kind of problem 

that you are talking about solved, if it always has to be hierarchical, as this chart suggests we structure government, where we 

have lots of boxes and you have to go get authority to do this and 

that. Instead, what—

Mr. DICKS. Ultimately, somebody has to take action. 

Ms. BAIRD. Yes, indeed. But when the information—

Mr. DICKS. Share a lot of information, but until we find somebody who is going to be smart enough to say, ‘‘There is a problem 

here, we had better do something,’’—

Ms. BAIRD. Right. 

Mr. DICKS. —which did not happen at the FBI. 

Ms. BAIRD. But they are more likely to see it in a way where the 

risk is clear, if it is not just one guy writing a memo about one person going to flight school—

Mr. DICKS. Yes. 

Ms. BAIRD. —but if, instead, that whole team comes together, 

and they have identified the pattern because they care about it. 

In terms of communicating with state and local actors, they 

ought to be part of that system, because they may see something. 

They may, you know, have brought in some people for some unrelated charge and learned something in that context. 
31

Or if you are talking about bioweapons, the local agricultural inspectors may see things that are funny. We show in our demonstration—Congressman Turner probably cannot forget it—the image of 

a particular virus on the snout of a hog, which a local agricultural 

inspector would be the first to see, not someone in Washington who 

is looking for what the next bioweapon might be. 

So that kind of respect for the potential perspectives of local people is something that is really important to focus on. 

Mr. GILMORE. Mr. Dicks, if I could add something. We certainly 

concur that you have to find the proper structures for informationsharing. That is why we recommended the fusion center, the TTIC. 

But one thing about our commission, it has been a strong advocate for state and local people, people who are out there walking 

the beat, people who are working at all levels of government. 

The real danger that we have always had is that things are just 

so federal-centric. And while I certainly concur with the Markle 

commission, that we need to get away from a federal-centric type 

of approach—that was the heart of our commission—I would be a 

little more cautious about the decentralization idea. I think that 

has to be very carefully constructed. 

But the point is this: We have to find a way to get information 

going up and down the line. We see it centrally as a culture problem—a culture problem. An unwillingness, particularly for federal 

authorities, to share information or even to seek information. And 

yet, state and local people are often going to have that information. 

We have to put a structure into place that encourages that cooperation. 

Frankly, the FBI has not always done all that well. I was an 

elected prosecutor for six years, and the interaction with the federal was not particularly strong. But on the other hand, FEMA is 

a model for working together between federal, state and local people. 

So I think it is a cultural issue. We have to get away from our 

federal arrogance that says that all knowledge and all assets and 

all residue of wisdom is located in the federal government, when 

the truth is that that wisdom will be enhanced by a partnership 

between federal, state and local people in an appropriate system. 

Chairman COX. Thank you for your responses. The gentleman’s 

time has expired. 

The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Weldon, is recognized for 

eight minutes. 

Mr. WELDON. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

And I just want to say that the last comment by Governor Gilmore I agree with totally. It has to be a partnership with the firstresponder community locally. And he said that repeatedly in the 

Gilmore commission reports. 

And, Mr. Chairman, as you know, my perspective is coming at 

the local level. And let me say, first of all, we have some very successful programs that are operating. 

If our colleagues have not received the JRIES brief, they need to 

get it, because that program, which was stood up on March the 7th 

of 2003, has become an outstanding model, very aggressively supported by the law enforcement community. It was prototyped in 

New York and southern California, and now it has been made 
32

available around the country. They have just linked up our law enforcement communities in Pennsylvania. 

There is a two-way capability of information-sharing. There is a 

protected classification of data, where it does not have to go to the 

full level of being classified, but yet it is sensitive. 

And it is working. Our law enforcement community is, in fact, receiving information, they are providing information. When I met 

with them and went to their national conferences, and I have been 

to two of them, they gave instances where one municipality in Louisiana is sharing information about impending threats that may 

have use for law enforcement departments in California or other 

states on the other side of the country. 

So there is a successful process under way, actually established 

originally by the Defense Department, but then supported by the 

Justice Department, that I think is working. And I think it is 

working well, and we should build on that, and that, for law enforcement, I think, is doing a good job. 

In the case of the first responder from the fire and EMS standpoint, they do not need that kind of capability. And I say that as 

a former fire chief, representing the firefighters in the counry. 

They need information to know where to go to get resources. 

When Chief Morris arrived on the scene of the Murrah Building 

bombing in Oklahoma City, he did not need to know where the 

next threat was coming from, but he needed to know where he 

could go to get structural engineers, because he had an eight-story 

high-rise federal building with a day care in the bottom, that proposed a life-safety risk. 

He needed to know where to get engineers to deal with the structural integrity of the complex while he was rescuing people. 

That is why the Homeland Security agency needs to have a resource capability where the first-responder command officer can 

know where to go to get help form the federal government. 

I remember, as I have said in this committee in the past, walking the freeway when it was collapsed at the Northridge earthquake, with the fire chiefs of San Francisco and Oakland, they 

were looking for people that were trapped inside their vehicles in 

between the two layers of the concrete structure that had collapsed 

on top of itself. And they were using dogs. And the dogs could not 

get down into the crevices of the sandwiched freeways to see 

whether or not there were people alive. 

And I said to them, ‘‘Why aren’t you using thermal imagers,’’ 

which were a technology we developed for the military 15 years 

earlier that detect body heat used on our naval ships. And the two 

fire chiefs of Oakland and San Francisco said, ‘‘What are thermal 

imagers?’’ They had no idea that their tax money had been used 

to develop this technology. 

So there needs to be a resource capability for a local emergency 

responder leader to know where to go quickly to get information 

and technology to assist him or her in dealing with that. That is 

a separate capability of information. It does not involve intelligence, but it involves resources. 

And there is a third need, and members on both sides now have 

addressed this repeatedly, and that is the need for an interoperable 

communication system. The Gilmore commission has referred to 
33

this. It has been a major priority of the fire service. APCO has 

called for this consistently at its national level for the past three 

years. 

We still do not have a nationwide integrated emergency communication system, as we do in the military. Governor Ridge understands that. He is addressing that with more money. And members 

on both sides of the aisle have called for additional funding. And 

I think that should be a top priority of ours. 

So I think we are making good progress. And I do not think we 

have to throw everything out the window. I think we should, first 

of all, understand fully what is available. 

What I do want to focus on, again, gets back to my original concern at the beginning of this hearing. And that is what I think is 

the ultimate purpose of information-sharing for intelligence purposes, and also the sensitivity of the military having to be able to 

defend our information systems against the threat of cyberattack. 

It is no secret the Chinese have stood up a fourth wing of their 

military specifically to focus on cyberwarfare and ways to bring 

down our capability to respond to our threats and perhaps to disrupt our information capability here in America. 

And so, in anything that we do, whether its classified or unclassified, we have to take into consideration the security of those information networks. 

But in the case of data fusion—and I want to ask you this question, Mr. Woolsey, because you were the CIA director in a previous 

life. 

As far back as 1999, when the military was first developing the 

concept of data fusion for intelligence purposes, and when both the 

Navy’s system, the Air Force’s program and, more importantly, the 

Army system down at Fort Belvoir, the LIWA facility, the Land Information Warfare Assessment Center, was creating models that 

were supported by the private sector, companies like Northrup 

Grumman right on the cutting edge of this back in the late 1990s. 

And when the Congress specifically called and offered to provide 

the funding, as John Hamre said—he was deputy secretary of defense—to pay for this capability, the CIA and the FBI said, ‘‘We do 

not need it. We do not need that capability.’’ And I documented 

that in a meeting that was held with all three agencies on November the 4th of 1999. 

We put language in the defense bill. They still did not come 

around. 

A new administration came in. In fact, if you read the statement 

of General Downing when he resigned from the White House on 

June the 27th of 2002, one of the reasons he said he had resigned 

was because he spent much of his time at the White House struggling with a variety of federal offices to create a data fusion center 

that would keep a 24-hour watch on all interagency intelligence on 

terrorism activities. 

It was not until four years after we first proposed the idea, long 

before 9/11, of creating a data fusion capability. And I gave you a 

copy and put it in the record, the brief for the NOA. 

The NOA is exactly what the TTIC is. There is no difference. I 

mean, there is no difference. 
34

So why would the CIA and the FBI in 1999, in 2000, in 2002, 

in 2002 object to a capability? It is finally in the State of the Union 

speech; in January of 2003, President Bush announced the creation 

of the TTIC. Why? Because I think that relates to our ability to 

continue to provide that integrated data to allow us to understand 

emerging threats. 

So, Mr. Former CIA Director, give us your insights into what the 

real reasons are. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. My first insight is, I am glad I resigned in January of 1995. 

[Laughter.] 

But I think that the cultures of both the CIA and the FBI are 

ones that have produced, in a number of circumstances, great successes for the country, but they are very specific cultures. And neither one is particularly oriented toward sharing data or information. 

The CIA culture is really, I think, driven in many ways by the 

clandestine service. It is one in which the more important what you 

are doing is, the fewer people are going to know about it. 

And you spend a lot of time cultivating an asset, obtaining something from him or her. And ideally you treasure it, and the director 

of operations knows about it, and the DCI knows about it, but it 

is so important almost nobody else, except the president, does. And 

that is success. 

For the FBI agent, generally speaking, I think success is bravely 

kicking down a door and grabbing one of the 10 most wanted and 

helping a prosecutor get him put away for life. And it is participating in investigation to that end. 

And the people who do those things do, I say again, in many circumstances great things for the country. 

Neither one of those cultures is particularly oriented to saying, 

‘‘Hey, let’s have a data fusion center in which everybody gets to 

know what I have come up with and what I am doing.’’ I mean, 

it is just sort of oil and water. 

And so, what one needs to do is find ways—and that is sort of 

what my remarks were focused on—that we can encourage the system to share what needs to be shared in a way that does not compromise things like sources and methods and counterintelligence 

information and the rest, and leads both of those fine institutions 

into an amended version of their cultures, not one that rejects it, 

but an amended version. 

And it takes time, it takes effort, it takes leadership, it takes cooperation between the Congress and the heads of the CIA and the 

FBI. And it is not going to happen fast, because one is really kind 

of swimming against the stream. 

But we do not want to throw out those two cultures as we are 

doing it, because in other times and circumstances what they do is 

extremely valuable and useful. 

Ms. BAIRD. The proposal that you have raised, I will be very interested in reading and interested in seeing whether it has some 

solutions for some of the problems that TTIC is facing. 

TTIC, I think, has actually started up very effectively and has 

moved quite quickly to improve the fusion of information from different agencies. Unfortunately, most people at TTIC still do not 
35

have access to the data from other agencies, other than their own, 

and it is very few people who are those fusion agents, if you will, 

who bring the information together. 

And I think it is important, and as you look at this further, perhaps you have some recommendations on how the agencies can be 

putting information into their own systems that are written to 

share. 

The FBI is, for example, making some very good progress in their 

new intelligence guidelines. They have taken the position that the 

FBI should write to share, not write to classify; that the information should be considered a share by rule and withhold by exception, which is a complete flipping of anything the FBI has done before, let alone any of the other agencies. 

And the CIA and intelligence community is, similarly, looking 

hard at those issues, but a culture of classification is pretty deep 

there. 

We are recommending a culture of authorization, if you will, 

which moves from the ownership and control and classification and 

the withholding of information, as Jim described it, for different institutional reasons, to one of writing to share and withholding of 

critical elements of information. 

But those centers, TTIC or presumably the one that you recommended, have a very important role to play. It does not bother 

me that there might be some redundancy, that there might be 

more than one of those fusion centers, because not everybody is 

going to see everything. 

But I also think we cannot fall into thinking that those are the 

only places where the dots can be connected. And connecting them 

with local people who are worrying about Chicago or their bridge, 

as Jim was talking about, is also very important. 

Mr. GILMORE. Congressman Weldon, I would say this. I liked the 

description that Mr. Woolsey gave of the role of the CIA and the 

FBI. Earlier, I was actually, frankly, shocked to hear that the CIA 

stole secrets. I did not think we read each other’s mail. 

But with respect to the description, I think that is right, but I 

think that today’s challenges require multidimensional approaches. 

It requires a recognition that more functions than that have to be 

done. And the challenge, I think, of leadership and indeed statesmanship is to provide clear direction from the Congress, that there 

is a recognition that there are more functions than that, in order 

to meet the challenge that we are facing today and we will face for 

other challenges and threats in the future. 

So he or she will have to meet that challenge, and I think that 

the direction of the Congress from a committee like this one will 

help a great deal. 

Chairman COX. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

The gentlelady from New York, Ms. Lowey, is recognized for 

eight minutes. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank 

you and the ranking member for holding these series of meetings. 

And I want to thank all of our expert witnesses today. 

I must say, as a congresswoman, or if I were one of the laymen 

sitting in the audience—though there may be many people in the 

audience who have great expertise—I would take a deep breath 
36

and say, ‘‘Well, it is a good thing we have a lot of luck,’’ that it is 

almost three years after 9/11, and with all the wisdom and the 

commissions and the foundations and the committees who are focusing on this, I just wonder if we will be sitting here three years 

from now debating the same concerns. 

And I say that seriously, because you all present very serious 

issues. And I did not even mention our Intelligence Committee and 

those such as Ms. Harman and Mr. Goss, who are putting together 

and have put together very serious proposals. 

And I also found it interesting, Ms. Baird, your presentation, as 

the others, was so very informative. And yet, when you began your 

remarks about a half hour ago, you said you are taking a 

contrarian position. Frankly, it sounds to me like common sense, 

what you are proposing. 

And so, as a member of Congress, I just wonder, and my colleagues have been asking the same question—I am not quite sure 

who to address it—how do we move this along? 

You are talking about a presidential directive. We see GAO reports that say 35 percent of local first responders do not feel that 

there is adequate connections to the federal government information. And we wonder, well, how do we improve on that quickly and 

not take another year, another two? 

And I say that not to be impatient, but we have had such wisdom, we have had such good testimony, we have had so many good 

reports, you just wonder how you move the process. 

And then I worry, and I think it was on March 25, 2004, the director of the FBI’s terrorist screening center, Donna Bucella, told 

us that the complete screening and watch list database is not available. We know that. She said it would be fully operational at the 

end of the year. I will not hold my breath until that happens because of all the limits you mention on that. 

So I really am asking a general question again. My colleague, 

Mr. Dicks, asked so many good questions. My colleague, Mr. 

Weldon, mentioned that he was focused on this issue in, what, was 

in 1997 or 1998? 

I happen to come from New York. We lost hundreds of constituents in the World Trade Center. We are very aware of the issue 

of interoperability. In fact, I think it was about six months ago, 

maybe a year ago, Mr. Chairman, the person who is responsible for 

sending federal standards out in an RFP said perhaps it would go 

out in six months. I should ask you if it has gone out. I do not 

think anyone I know has received it. 

So many of our local communities, being so close to New York, 

are buying their own equipment. And I am trying to put in place 

a bill which I have introduced that would reimburse those local 

communities, among other things, have a special area just focused 

on interoperability in the Department of Homeland Security, so we 

can work with these communities, who, frankly, are doing their 

own things because they have not got any directive from the federal government. 

So I am not sure who I want to address this sense of frustration 

to all of you, but to speak for the average citizen, who, frankly, in 

my community, is in a state of, shall we say modestly, real concern, 

real anxiety, worried about the future, should we just say that this 
37

is the greatest country in the world and we have had some good 

things happen and we will just muddle through, and with a lot of 

luck, maybe we will not have a 9/11 for another three years? 

Maybe Mr. Woolsey. If you see that there is something integral 

to the departments of FBI and CIA that you think is an anathema 

to really having one list, how do we get past that? 

One other point, and then I really want to hear from you. 

When I am on an airplane, I know that someone is having to 

check with all these lists, and someone falling through the cracks 

is a real probability. And this is another area. I know that people 

who work at these airports, whether it is McDonald’s, whether they 

are food handlers, still are not going through security, as I am. 

The government move so slowly, and that is the nature of the 

beast. How do we get just that one thing done? Perhaps it is The 

Markle Foundation’s recommendations or the Gilmore commission. 

How do we ensure that if I am getting on an airplane or a constituent is getting on an airplane that, even though there may be 

eight lists or 10 lists or 12 lists, we are going to catch that guy and 

stop that guy if you do not feel realistically they are going to be 

able to merge the lists? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Congresswoman, I do not think that cooperation 

is—I would not go so far as to say it is an anathema to the bureau 

or the agency. It is that, for important parts of what they have 

done in the past, keeping things very close to the vest has worked 

for them. 

And as long as what one is doing is prosecuting individual crimes 

of fraud or kidnapping or whatever for the FBI, and one is recruiting specific KGB officers, the sort of behavior I described is perfectly reasonable behavior. 

The problem is that we are in a new world. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Right. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. And it is a world in which one is going to have 

to be creative about the way one extracts information that has been 

stolen either by the CIA overseas or given from an intelligence liaison service, a foreign service, or obtained by my hypothetical patrolman on the beat from a grocer on the corner. 

One is going to have to find out a way to get that out and have 

people be able to have access to it in a way that the governor and 

Ms. Baird have suggested. 

Some of the things we do and have done in the historic intelligence communities are, for example, called terror lines. In a classified document, we will have something—not a lot, often—but 

something about the source of intelligence, because it is almost always the case that you you can do a better job of making a judgment about intelligence the more you know about the source. 

That is why the president’s daily brief is so important. We are 

completely candid about sources in the president’s daily brief, 

whereas the material that goes out to hundreds or, in this government, thousands of people will be very vague, often, about sources. 

If you have nothing about a source, sometimes you can get information out and someone, let’s say, with a secret level security 

clearance in the police office, NYPD, may not be able to make as 

good a judgment about how valid that is. But if he is told, ‘‘We 

have a serious threat of such and such a type in New York over 
38

the course of the next two weeks,’’ and he does not know anything 

about the source because it has just come to him below a tear line, 

still he can do a lot if the information is useful to him and it is 

something that he can act on. 

That is the kind of thing, I take it, that we are talking about trying to do with the networks that The Markle Foundation has 

talked about and, in a slightly different context, the Gilmore commission has talked about. 

But people who are consumers of intelligence are perpetually demanding to know more and more about sources and methods. It is 

just very frustrating to be told, ‘‘Listen, all I can tell you is you got 

a serious risk to the bridges of New York over the course of the 

next two weeks.’’ Well, why do you say that? Why should I believe 

that? I mean, if you are a normal person, you ask that question. 

And the answer for large numbers of people is going to have to be, 

‘‘I am sorry. We cannot go into that.’’

So if you can set up a system where the substance is largely, almost entirely—best of all, entirely—extracted from sources and 

methods and separated from it, I think a lot of this can be done 

in a useful and interesting way. 

But it will be a constant struggle, not only with people in the 

NYPD, but in the Department of State and elsewhere. People always want to know more about source and methods. And for widely 

disseminated information, they are just going to have to be told 

‘‘sorry.’’

Ms. BAIRD. Yes, I share the frustration of your constituents, wondering why it is we cannot do this better. 

The answer, though, is not to have one commandant telling every 

agency what to do and making them march to the same drum. The 

diversity of America is its great strength. 

But the answer is having a common vision. And we have recommended that common vision be set in a presidential directive. 

And we have also said though that, that common vision could be 

set by DHS. 

With an inter-agency and a public/private process, this committee could play a real role if it wanted to give everyone a vision 

to march to that is a common vision. So that when we invest in 

that local communication it not only is interoperable between police 

and firemen, but it in fact is interoperable with a larger system, 

because we cannot predict who they will need to talk to tomorrow—

they may need someone at the CDC, they may need someone who 

is an expert on bioterrorism at a university. 

The other aspect of that is that, by having some kind of common 

vision, we can use a sort tear-line system, a system of stripping out 

sources and methods, but, nevertheless, give people common rating 

tools. 

So instead of asking the name of a source in order to find out 

if the source is very good, you can have an eBay-like or an Amazonlike rating button on the information, where the originator of it 

says, ‘‘This is urgent,’’ ‘‘This is of high value,’’ ‘‘This is a reliable 

source.’’

And then everybody in the network can rate the rater. If he is 

not really good, if he puffs, you know, his own source, promotes his 

own sources, but nobody else has found the information useful, you 
39

could have a second button which says, you known, ‘‘This guy is 

not to be trusted as someone who is putting the information from 

our government into the system.’’

So there are a lot of tools we can use that are used every day 

by your constituents in their own homes, in their own small businesses, not just big companies. And our government needs to get 

as smart as our people are and use those tools. 

Mr. GILMORE. Well, I will add something to that. I think that the 

danger at the local and state level is that information is gained because of the superior assets at the federal level, and the state police and the local police never know anything about it at all. 

The feds do not trust the states and locals. They are afraid to 

give them anything. There have, in fact, been some examples, as 

a matter of fact, where unfortunate governors have made public 

statements they should not have made based on federal information, which then makes the feds even more suspicious. 

The answer, it seem to me, is the setting up of an appropriate 

structure to share information, to create a culture that places trust, 

whether you have a hierarchal ability to deal with that, which, 

frankly, I prefer, because I think that it gains more accountability, 

or a decentralized type of approach, which I think would have to 

be scrutinized to make sure there is appropriate accountability. No 

matter what it is, you have to have some willingness to actually 

do it. 

And the problem here is that I think you have to go to a system 

that calls a clear idea of what you are doing, and then training. 

Remember that in, I think, yesterday’s paper, there was an example that someone in American Online has been accused of getting access to information then selling that out. Well, they have 

been charged with a crime, a crime, under the statute. 

And, indeed, if someone is going to give information to a state 

or local official properly cleared, who has a need to know, and then 

they turn around and misuse the information or spill it out, you 

would do with them what you would do with Hanssen or some with 

other person, the FBI or CIA, you prosecute them. 

And you train people to understand that that is going to be the 

rules of the game. And I think that opens the key to, at that point, 

actually diffuse information so you take advantage of all of the aspects of information and intelligence-sharing in this society. 

Mrs. LOWEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I hope we can gather next year. 

Chairman COX. I thank the gentlelady. 

I thank the witnesses for their answers. 

The time has expired. 

The gentleman from Nevada is recognized for, how many minutes? Eight minutes. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And to each of our witnesses today, thank you for your appearance here today. Your testimony has been enlightening. It has been 

valuable to us, in terms of our discussion and our effort to make 

heads and tails of what we have before us. So we appreciate that 

greatly. 

Chairman COX. I wonder if the gentleman would yield just for a 

brief announcement. 
40

The committee has scheduled a briefing that begins at 1 o’clock. 

The witnesses have asked us that they be excused by 12:45. We 

have three members who want to ask questions. And that should 

just about work if everybody, including our witnesses, is compact 

in their answers and questions. 

Thank you. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Well, Mr. Chairman, in that vein, I will try to ask 

just three very simple, direct questions, one to each of the witnesses so perhaps we will not have to belabor this process much 

longer, especially for them. They have been here very patiently. 

That said, perhaps I should direct my first question to Director 

Woolsey. 

I mean, listening to your comments about the reorganization proposals of the CIA and whether this is going to end up in a structural change with a new head of the national director of intelligence or perhaps just a simple, new and improved DCI, which 

ever that process is, that individual will end up inheriting what I 

see as a vast array of intelligence fusion centers and analytical centers, feeding information to and receiving information from various 

organizations. 

And my question would be, is it better to have the hub-and-spoke 

system, where we have something like the TTIC today at the hub, 

or should we have a centralized single agency responsible for sharing information to first responders and other agencies? What is 

your suggestion? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Congressman, the dilemma about intelligence is 

that, for some things, you want centralization and, other things, 

you want competition. 

The reason we have a U–2 and satellites and a lot of other things 

is because different parts of the CIA and the Defense Department 

historically, in a sense, competed against one another to come up 

with new approaches toward collection. And the richness of the intelligence where it is available to us is, in part, because things 

were not centrally directed. 

Also, in analysis, it is a good idea to have more than one set of 

eyes on a problem and to have people come at things from a somewhat different perspective. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State Department, as I mentioned before, sometimes 

has a different point of view than other parts of the intelligence 

community. And they have done a good job of presenting that view. 

Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong. But DCIs 

and presidents and secretaries of state are well served by having 

that disagreement. 

What you do not want competition in is organizing things, pulling them together, making sure the right people are informed, 

making sure the judgments are made properly about need-to-know 

access and having sort of one system for pulling things together instead of lots. 

Mr. GIBBONS. So, to analyze it quickly, because I want to the 

other three questions here, and I hate to interrupt you, and I understand basically. 

What you are saying is the hub-and-spoke system that we have 

today, with the multiple series of fusion centers and intelligence 
41

and analytic centers feeding into a central organization, is probably 

the most efficient way to deal with intelligence? 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I am relaxed about multiple sources of intelligence 

and multiple folks doing analysis. I am not real happy about the 

idea of having multiple fusion centers. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Okay. 

Let me jump over to Ms. Baird, because the Markle report or the 

Markle Foundation’s report has urged the creation of system-wide 

homeland analysis exchange—SHARE, I think that is what you 

call it—available from commercial vendors of software. 

My question is, knowing of course, what we have just seen with 

AOL, the insider that sold inside information, knowing Hanssen 

was an insider in the FBI who was in charge of counterintelligence, 

knowing people like Aldrich Ames, et cetera, in the CIA were insiders, and the complexity and the size and the importance of the information that would be lumped into a common system sharing 

this information, my concern is the security with this. And you 

heard Mr. Weldon talk at length about the security of our cyber 

systems. 

How do you assure us that a proposal of this nature, with the 

value and the sensitivity of the information that is in there, would 

be secure? 

Ms. BAIRD. Well, certainly, I would agree that the insider is the 

biggest risk, in fact. 

The system that we proposed does allow people to withhold certain most critical information from a system like this and only let 

it be known that they have something. So a source of information 

that you do not want somebody to be able to tap into, that kind 

of thing, can be withheld. 

The potential, though, for use of aggressive audit processes, aggressive tracking of whether it is only authorized people who are 

using information, the inability to pass information—that can be 

done with technology to prohibit others from passing it along or 

prohibit if from being printed out, these kinds of things can go a 

long way, with the kind of security and encryption technology that 

is used in the private sector can—and some, well, by government, 

the Defense Department and others—can go a long way to providing security. 

But I would say that it is a combination of making sure you get 

there fast, if somebody is misusing information, and of keeping certain kinds of information out of the system. 

But we do believe that the overall balance favors this kind of 

management of shared information and that we can be very, very 

good at protecting ourselves from people trying to abuse the system 

and not protect ourselves from terrorists. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Gilmore, finally, let me say that one of the recommendations of the earlier commission that you served on recommended that we develop domestic intelligence agencies, something like MI–5. And I just want to get your opinion. 

Is it sufficient to have the FBI and the Department of Homeland 

Security coordinating closely to protect the homeland security, as 

we do today? Or do we really need an MI–5? 
42

Because those of us like myself are vastly concerned about the 

implications of having a domestic government organization spying 

on Americans. 

So I want to know, you know, your ideas. Should we merge or 

is there a need to merge these functions into a single agency? 

Mr. GILMORE. We argued over this for virtually a year, in year 

four of our five-year commission, in the year 2002. And, again, 

there was a certain line of thinking, led by Jerry Bremer, of the 

commission that basically said, ‘‘Look, security is everything here. 

We have to go to something that is not a law enforcement model.’’ 

And that actually ended up prevailing as our recommendation to 

the Congress. 

Again, my view and that of one or two others on the commission 

was that the FBI is the better approach. They are properly deployed. They, by virtue of their activity with law enforcement, they 

understand what the constitution is, what the law is, and the fact 

that it applies within the domestic homeland. So that is the essence of the discussion that we had. 

I think that our commission has devoted continuously, and up 

until the final report, a serious concern about the risk to civil freedoms and the country as a result of an obsessive overreaction, a 

hysterical reaction, at this moment in time in our history. We are 

concerned about it, and that is why I think that the bureau should 

be forced to do it, should be required to do it, and should be carefully overseen by this committee and other committees and that be 

demanded in that way. 

But what is the thinking behind MI–5? The thinking was that 

a law enforcement organization is not suitable, that an intelligent 

organization is suitable. And since we do not have one really domestically, the FBI is fundamentally and culturally a law enforcement organization, that we should go to an MI–5. 

I believe you will find that the discussions of our commission for 

that year should properly advise the Congress of the different elements so you make a decision as to the appropriate approach. I 

hope that is responsive. 

Mr. GIBBONS. Very responsive. Thank you very much. 

And to each of you, thank you again. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Chairman COX. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Mr. Langevin is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. 

I want to thank you for organizing this hearing. 

And I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. Your 

testimony has been extraordinarily helpful. 

I probably want to pursue, I guess, a little bit more, in the line 

of questioning that Mr. Gibbons had begun. And we have talked 

really about, you know, three different things here: the director of 

national intelligence, whether it is DCI or DNI; we have also spoken about getting greater information-sharing cooperation among 

the various intelligence agencies; and then we have talked about 

the communication and information-sharing with our first responders. 

What I would like to do, if I could, just—we do not have time to 

get to probably all of those—starting with a DNI. We have gotten 
43

kind of a broad outline, but more of a, I guess, it is more meat on 

the bones. 

Can you tell me, how do you envision this working, if we were 

to have a DCI, DNI, so that it is not just ceremonial? You described 

it, Mr. Woolsey, as, you know, honorary chairman of the board, as 

it exists right now. How do we not replicate that? Does this person 

have budgetary authority? Do the various heads of the intelligence 

agencies answer to the DCI? 

And on that, sir, I would like some more information on that 

point. 

But also on getting the various intelligence agencies to work 

more closely together. Mr. Gilmore, you hit it on the head, that this 

is largely a cultural problem, the hurdle that we need to overcome. 

And coming from a public administration background, I know 

how difficult that way is. You either have to replace the people that 

are there, which I am not advocating at all, or you have to somehow get the people to buy into seeing the value in working together, in changing the culture themselves, being a part of that 

change. 

Is it time for an MI–5 model? Some of our Special Forces, in a 

sense, work that way. They come from, you know, Army, Air Force, 

Marines, but the insignias are basically stripped off from where 

they come from, the various branches of the military, and they 

work for one purpose. 

So why not that type of a model? We have obviously the CIA, we 

have the intelligence branch within the FBI, we have air force intelligence, army intelligence, naval intelligence. 

Should we not have these individuals as part of one intelligence 

branch, maybe working in different sectors, but budgetary authority and all that is essentially located in one agency? 

So, if you could try to handle those, I would appreciate it. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Just a few words on the DCI–DNI one. I referred 

earlier to Congresswoman Harman’s bill. The one aspect of it I did 

not favor was that it had the undersecretary of defense for intelligence being the deputy to the overall head of the community. And 

that would, I think, give the Defense Department and that individual too much power, because he then has two bosses, in a sense. 

And if you have two bosses, I am not sure that you have one at 

all. 

I was once nominally the boss of Hyman G. Rickover when I was 

undersecretary of the Navy. And one important thing about Admiral Rickover was that he also had a position in the Department of 

Energy and he also had a lot of support on the Hill, so he really 

did not have a boss. And I do not think that the notion of having 

two bosses for the number-two person in this structure is a good 

idea. 

But other than that, I like her bill because using terms and 

words of correlative authority and associate appointments and the 

like, what she tries to do essentially is force a partnership between 

the secretary of defense and the new DNI or DCI, the overall head 

of the community, on such matters as money and personnel. And 

those are the two hearts of the matter. 

The DCI today cannot hire and fire the head of the NSA, and he 

cannot move money from NSA into the NRO or vice versa. He can 
44

ask, but that is it. This gives him or her more authority in that 

direction than he or she has now, but it does not make him the 

overall head of the community, to the exclusion of the interests of 

the secretary of defense. 

I think that is about as well as one can do under the current 

interlocking responsibilities that much of the intelligence community has for working directly for combatant commanders, as well as 

working on more national and civilian objectives. 

And on the other aspects of your question, I will let my colleagues answer. 

Mr. GILMORE. Congressman, I think I would concur that an overall director of central intelligence or a director of national intelligence is a good idea, to begin to bring these things together. 

You can certainly have a much more formalized ability to work 

with the defense establishment coming into that kind of a structure. I believe he should have budgetary authority, and I think he 

should have some personnel authority. 

I think that this dual-boss problem is a central one that the Congress is going to have to wrestle with. Maybe a construct that tries 

to draw a distinction between intelligence operations, such as the 

one I was involved with when I was in the service, in support of 

military organizations engaged in military activities or preparations for that; more tactical intelligence is one thing and more strategic intelligence is something else. And information acquired there 

could be dealt with on a more consultive basis under this kind of 

structure. 

I do think you have to deal with the issue of, if somebody does 

not work for you, you do not control them. And that is a reality. 

When I was governor, I sought a new policy of accountability for 

public colleges and sought to appoint people to college boards who 

would bring actual oversight and accountability to public college 

education. But the law in Virginia is you appoint them and they 

are gone; you cannot recall them. 

And as a result, I would say that that was not a successful policy 

implementation, because unless you can actually bring some accountability of the person that is working for you back to the table 

again, you cannot really expect it to be successful. 

These are the challenges that I think lay ahead of this committee. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you. 

Chairman COX. Thank the gentleman. 

The chairman of the Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness 

and Response, gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Shadegg, is recognized 

for five minutes, or eight minutes, or however many minutes you 

can get out of our witnesses who are trying to leave. 

Mr. SHADEGG. I thank you, and I note that we are already passed 

your deadline, so I will try to be brief. 

Let me begin with an apology to our witnesses. I would like to 

have been here throughout this hearing, but due to conflicts, including a mark-up downstairs, I have not been able to be here and 

hear your answers to all the questions, though I had staff here. 

And I believe you have been very, very helpful. 

Let me try to ask just two fairly direct questions, and we could 

all conclude this. 
45

First, Director Woolsey, if I am not mistaken, at the end of an 

answer to a question just a few moments ago, you said something 

to the effect that you are not fond of a great number of fusion centers. 

The state of Arizona, a part of which I represent, has created a 

fusion center, or is creating a fusion center, their state director of 

homeland security just advised me yesterday that California has 

expressed an interest in participating in that fusion center and 

that, indeed, our director would like to get all of the border states, 

those states that border Mexico, to participate in that fusion center. 

I would like to give you an opportunity to give me a little more 

guidance on your concern about fusion centers. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Congressman, it is fairly straightforward. I think 

as long as there is a fusion center of fusion centers, we are okay, 

as the Defense Department talks about the concept of a system of 

systems. 

What I was trying to suggest is that we do not want incompatible 

software, incompatible nomenclature, lists that have different 

standards for things going on them and so forth. This all needs to 

get pulled together someplace. 

And the parts of intelligence that I think, as I said, ought to be 

competitive and come from different perspectives. People ought to 

have the ability to come up with new ways of collecting intelligence, even if they are different from what exists and not coordinated. They can coordinate them later. And they ought to have the 

ability to have disagreements and different perspectives on analysis. 

But in terms of pulling the information together so everybody is 

kind of working from a common background, if you have a bunch 

of different fusion centers and someone has architected the system 

so that they all work together, then that is fine. 

Mr. SHADEGG. The point is very clear. I appreciate it. 

My second question goes to you, Governor Gilmore. Let me give 

you a little background. In a prior life, I worked for the Arizona 

Attorney General’s Office. I was the second-ranking lawyer under 

the attorney general himself. I had responsibility for a number of 

divisions of the office. 

In a state that had 13 county attorneys, and our job was to try 

to coordinate with those country attorneys and have them all working together. When you work in a job like that, you learn all the 

internecine fights that go on between various law enforcement 

agencies. The chiefs of police do not like the sheriffs. The sheriffs 

do not like the chiefs of police. And some county attorneys are 

angry at the AG; some are happy with him. It is a difficult circumstance to be in, but it is one we struggle through all the time. 

Ms. Baird talked about and emphasized the importance of architecture, hardware and software, for sharing information. And I 

think that is extremely important. 

But it seems to me what we face in this committee and what the 

department faces is a human problem, a problem of getting all 

these disparate agencies that may have motivations, indeed in the 

past have had intense motivations, not to cooperate to, in fact, cooperate. 
46

And I guess my question to you is, how can we create incentives 

for each of them to be sharing information? And I think this is a 

topic on which you have a great deal of knowledge, and I appreciate your thoughts on what this committee can do to create those 

kinds of incentives and aid the department. 

Mr. GILMORE. Boy, that is a complicated question. And I was—

Mr. SHADEGG. You got the rest of the day, so—

Mr. GILMORE. Oh, okay. 

[Laughter.] 

We will be a while, I think. 

And, as you know, I was attorney general of Virginia, and it is 

a challenge to get all of the disparate people trying to work together. 

And we have focused a lot of attention, again, upon the distinction between federal authority and state and local authority and 

the divides that are created there. 

I was amused by your previous question. I am curious to know 

whether when they create that western fusion center at the state 

level whether they are going to allow the feds to participate or not. 

Mr. SHADEGG. They intend to. 

Mr. GILMORE. I would be curious to know. 

But I think that the answer is that you have to have a clear 

plan. I think you have to have a clear structure and an understanding of what are the expectations of the people involved, so 

that, at a local basis, the sheriffs and the police chiefs need to understand who they are supposed to report to, who is in charge. 

And if that is to the local prosecutor, that is fine. If it is to a 

state police representative at the emergency operation center in 

Phoenix or someplace like that, then that is fine. But there has to 

be a clear understanding of what it is. 

And then there has to be a culture of liberality, where people can 

know that they can have access to this information, and the information has to go up and down the chain. 

And then you have to be sure that it works together between all 

of the levels of government: federal, state and local. 

If you put structures into place and a clear game plan and a 

clear expression of expectations, then I think that the personal 

feuds or turf battles can diminish. Because if somebody sees a clear 

set of instructions and game plan and rules and they do not play 

by them and something bad happens, there is going to be hell to 

pay by that person who is not participating. And I think that that 

is some incentive for them not to do that. 

How can this committee help? It is a challenge, because this committee does not run the states and the locals. There has to be, I 

think, a vision. And that is why I am so pleased to be here today 

and participating with this committee, because I think that this 

committee has the opportunity to create that type of visionary approach. And that, I believe, is the opportunity that is ahead of you. 

Mr. SHADEGG. Thank you very much. I thank you for your time, 

and yield back the balance of my time. 

Chairman COX. Thank you very much. 

It is seven minutes beyond the time that I promised that you 

could leave. And I understand, in particular, Ms. Baird, that you 
47

are racing to the airport. So each of you, if you need to leave at 

this moment, is excused. 

We have one more member who wishes to ask questions. 

So I want to hold firm to the committee’s promise that the witnesses are excused, if you need to leave. If you can remain, you are 

certainly invited and welcome to do so. 

And, in either case, the gentlelady will put her questions, and I 

would appreciate your willingness to respond to them, in writing 

after the hearing. 

Ms. BAIRD. Thank you. I would just clarify, I have a 2 o’clock 

plane, so that is my constraint. And I apologize for that and would 

be happy to meet with anyone individually or if I can give—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, if you would yield, I would like 

to proceed with the two gentlemen and put my questions on the 

record. And if someone can answer it very quickly, I would be delighted. 

Chairman COX. All right, Ms. Baird, I think if you need to catch 

a plane, you are going to make us all nervous if you do not do so. 

Ms. BAIRD. Thank you kindly for having me here. Thank you. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Mr. Chairman, if my old friend, the staff director, 

could call my office and tell them to put off my conference call until 

1:15, I would appreciate it. And then I am fine here for the next—

Chairman COX. All right. And, of course, the entire committee is 

due in the Capitol no later than 1 o’clock. We have a hard 1 o’clock 

start and a hard 2 o’clock stop. So we only have two minutes, at 

most. 

The gentlelady from Texas is recognized. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Let me thank the witnesses for their accommodation on such an important topic. 

Let me just simply say this about intelligence: There cannot be 

a more important part of the infrastructure. 

Mr. Gilmore, thank you, Governor, for you great works. 

And, Ambassador, Director Woolsey, thank you for your good 

works. 

Let me just ask this very important question. We had a big debate on whether or not you need to respond to the CIA when they 

ask for full funding of counterterrorism. 

Would you suggest that there is a crack in the system, when we 

cannot give a full funding for counterrorism as one of our most important elements of our responsibilities? 

And since I have a short period of time, would you also just give 

me the effectiveness of TTIC and how we might make it more effective? 

I think my colleague, Mr. Turner, said, the dual responsibilities, 

or the dueling responsibilities. Can you give us, if you would, that 

idea of how that can become more effective? 

And I guess lawyers have more than one question when they say 

they have two. 

I would only ask you, as to whether or not in the sense of where 

we are today, do we see a function or a viewpoint of an effective 

interrelated intelligence system? And I know that is a larger question, but maybe a brief answer would be helpful. 

So the counterintelligence full-funding question. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Counterterrorism or counterintelligence? 
48

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Counterterrorism full-funding for the CIA that 

would help them in countering terrorism. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. Well, on those facts, not knowing more about it, 

and having suffered somewhat from rather substantial budget cuts, 

both in the executive branch and the Congress, when I was DCI 

back in the early 1990s, it is hard for me to imagine, under the current circumstances, doing anything other than giving the agency in 

the other parts of the government anything they reasonably need 

and require in the counterterorism area. 

The CIA’s counterterrorism work overseas, as I said in my opening statement, is something that may not be at the heart of our 

counterterrorism work in terms of dealing with threats here in the 

United States. Because, as we saw on 9/11, much of work, took 

place here and in Germany, two places where we do not really spy. 

But, on the facts as you state them, Congresswoman, I would 

really be rather surprised at anything other than a full funding of 

what they reasonably believe is necessary would be the course that 

people would take. 

Mr. GILMORE. Sure. I—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Welcome. 

Mr. GILMORE. Thank you, Congresswoman. 

I sat with the Congresslady recently at the Ronald Reagan funeral. 

The issue of counterterrorism is now quite central, because the 

issue is going to be, how can we prevent? And there is no way of 

preventing other than counterintelligence. 

And, as for counterterrorism, to the extent that that is different, 

I believe that that means a response to that intelligence and information by the appropriate agencies. 

No, I do not believe that Congress is going to give a blank check 

for anything. I think you are going to look and see what the money 

is requested for. But I think it is a national priority, without any 

question to that. 

And, on the TTIC, I do not know how it is working. We recommended that it be a stand-alone agency so that all customers 

could feel like they could come together in it. And we believe that 

it should have significant participation by state and local people as 

well. 

But, clearly, that was a major step forward, to create at least a 

fusion center that could become a model and a hub, if you will, for 

the hub-and-spoke system on intelligence fusion. 

Mr. WOOLSEY. I would only add, on TTIC, Congresswoman, it 

does seem to me that what I had said earlier about setting up a 

separate office to head the intelligence community, the director of 

national intelligence or central intelligence, separate from the CIA 

as an agency, has positive implications for TTIC. 

I think it is more understandable for other parts of the community to have something reporting to the overall head of the community who is not, at the same time, the head of the CIA, and would 

be, in many ways, a stand-alone agency in that capacity more than 

it is if it reports to the DCI under its current structure, where he 

is also the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Chairman COX. I thank the gentlelady for her outstanding questions, the witnesses for their outstanding answers. 
49

And I ask that we keep the hearing record open for 30 days so 

that additional questions that members may have may be submitted to the witnesses in writing. 

Mr. GILMORE. Mr. Chairman, I may wish to submit a statement 

as well, a written statement. 

Chairman COX. And, without objection, that will be included in 

the record as well. 

You have been—

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Chairman, yield, I am sorry. I did not 

hear your opening. Members statements may be allowed too? 

Chairman COX. Oh, yes, by all means. 

Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Thank you very much.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON-LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE

I want to thank Chairman Cox and Ranking Member Turner for putting together 

this vital hearing on information hearing issues. As we learn more about the events 

the preceded September 11th it has become apparent that if information sharing between our intelligence agencies had been more in tune with each other then we may 

very well would have been able to prevent the devastating terrorist attacks of that 

day. To this day information sharing in our nation is not where it should be, the 

American people need to know that our nation’s intelligence agencies are working 

in sync; unfortunately it still seems that these agencies are often working against 

each other. This debate is even more timely in my mind because of the fact that 

the House just took up and passed the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2005, H.R. 

4548. I am still of the mind, that our intelligence agencies, one of the cornerstones 

of Homeland Security is not being properly funded. However, proper information 

sharing between and also within intelligence agencies is the only way our nation 

will be secure, no matter what the budget is. 

I am shocked and even appalled that almost three years after September 11th 

there are still not effective avenues of communication in place. The GAG has found 

that officials from states, cities and localities do not consider the current process of 

sharing information to protect the homeland to be effective. Indeed, a major GAG 

survey noted that only 35% of these respondents reported that sharing information 

with the federal government was ‘‘effective’’ or ‘‘very effective’’. These numbers are 

very disturbing, especially when we consider that they come from people at the local 

level, those who understand their security risks the best and those who will be most 

directly affected by a terrorist attack in their community. 

In addition to a lack of proper communication is the fact that our intelligence 

agencies are not properly divided with clear distinctions as to roles and responsibilities. This confusion has often led to the fact that certain incidents and cases are 

being looked by multiple agencies while others too often fall through the cracks. A 

Markle Foundation Task Force Report uncovered major weaknesses in how the Executive Branch defines the respective roles, responsibilities, and authorities of the 

Federal agencies involved in assessing and disseminating homeland security information. The report concludes that the roles of the TSC, TTIC, the Director of Central Intelligence’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC), the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and its JTTFs, and the Defense Department’s Northern Command 

are not clearly defined. Inevitably, this will sustain continued turf battles among 

agencies, gaps in information sharing and analysis, and limit attempts to protect 

civil liberties. 

Lack of proper communication and undefined roles are only two of the many problems that face our intelligence agencies in dealing with information sharing. Our 

national security will not be ensured until all agencies can properly share and disseminate information. It is unfortunate to me that in the near three years since 

September 11th, that more substantive steps to cure information sharing gap have 

not been taken. We needed proper information sharing a long time ago and we desperately need it now, time will only tell if we get it in the future.

Chairman COX. The gentlewoman’s statement will be included in 

the record. 

I want to thank, again, our three witnesses, although Ms. Baird 

had to leave early. And we look forward to continuing to work with 

you on these vitally important questions. 
50

There being no further business, the chair, again, thanks the 

members who are here, the staff who worked on preparing this 

hearing. 

Without objection, the committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 
(51)

A P P E N D I X 

QUESTIONS AND RESPONSES

REPONSES FROM ZOE ̈ BAIRD TO QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD FROM THE HONORABLE

SHEILA JACKSON-LEE

1. If the events leading up to September 11th were to happen today, how 

would the new information sharing capabilities be able to prevent the terrorist attacks? Specifically in relation the information about suspicious foreign nationals who were taking flight lessons, that was not properly shared between intelligence agencies.

ANSWER: The Markle Taskforce on National Security in the Information Age has 

suggested the creation of a distributed, decentralized network (SHARE or Systemwide Homeland Analysis and Resource Exchange Network) that would prevent the 

stove-piping of information such as the FBI Phoenix memo that indicated that suspicious foreign nationals might be training at U.S. flight schools in preparation for 

future terror activity against civil aviation targets. 

The SHARE Network is a decentralized, loosely coupled, secure and trusted network that sends information to and pulls information from all participants (with the 

suitable permissions) in the system. The SHARE Network allows for vertical and 

horizontal co-ordination and integration. Information would be able to flow not just 

up the chain of command, but also to the edges of the system. 

In addition, the information shared may not be the data itself, but pointers to the 

person who controls the data, such as the FBI local agent, or who is informed about 

a topic, or who has access to more classified information. This allows for an objectoriented and self-organizing approach to the information. Participants are able to 

identify, contact, and engage their peers through robust directories and identity systems, and access useful and relevant information by using comprehensive querying 

and analysis tools. 

The SHARE Network would enable, facilitate, and at times, demand two-way 

communication. As such the SHARE Network would ensure that users never reach 

a ‘‘dead end’’ on the network, such as the FBI Phoenix memo. Individuals who contribute to the network, based upon a ‘‘write to share’’ concept of operations, instead 

of the current ‘need to know’ model, would also receive information and feedback 

from the network and other participants, ensuring that participants, who have the 

adequate permissions and authorizations, at the edge of the network remain engaged and motivated. As such the SHARE Network moves from a classification system to an authorization system. 

Participation in the SHARE Network can take many forms. Communities of practice—groups of participants in fields like aviation security—would also collectively 

act in a network. These communities benefit greatly from increased connections to 

those with similar roles in different organizations or at other levels. In addition, the 

collective community may come together as ad hoc workgroups, mobilized for specific tasks or identified threats (such as the threat of terrorists using airplanes to 

attack). Participants are not distinguished by their relationship to a central gatekeeper, but by their relationship to one another and the need to share. 

In our SHARE Network, participants can, will, and should form unique and utilitarian relationships in order to best support their particular role in national security, whether in prevention, analysis, response, or protection. Such a peer-to-peer 

collaboration allows federal, state, and local participants to draw upon the collective 

expertise of the community. In an environment of such great risks, empowerment 

of local actors will lead to better prevention or response management. And this can 

a be done while protecting privacy and other civil liberties interests through 

anonymization of information, audit trails and other tools. 

Information—managed through information technology—is the key to enhancing 

security. Information-sharing itself is not the goal; rather, it is the means by which 
52

we can most effectively enhance security and protect privacy, by maximizing our 

ability to make sense of all available information.

2. Explain to me regarding the current system in place how hypothetically an intelligence item discovered in Houston would find its way to 

the proper national intelligence officers in Washington in order to prevent 

a potential terrorist threat in Seattle?

ANSWER: Answering this question correctly would require further details about what kind of intelligence item was discovered by whom and 

when. Yet, below, I provide an illustration of how our envisaged information sharing system (SHARE Network) could operate in this hypothetically 

case. 

Say a field agent at the Houston FBI office and a CIA operative in Kabul become 

aware of separate leads that if put together might point to a bio-warfare attack in 

Seattle. Under the current system, reports from these two agents are unlikely to 

have enough actionable information to be moved through the system. However, 

using the SHARE Network, these reports would be linked through similar key 

words such as ‘‘virus’’ and ‘‘Seattle’’ or other linking tools. Instead of being housed 

in classified files and filing cabinets at the CIA and FBI, these reports would be 

distributed electronically to people who should see them. They also would be posted 

and available to be pulled by network participants with a particular interest. An 

analyst at TTIC, for example, might see both reports, contact the CIA and FBI 

agents and others to discuss their reports, begin to connect the dots and define actionable objectives. The FBI, CIA, and TTIC players could form ‘‘a virtual task force’’ 

by reaching out to other relevant agencies and individuals, perhaps at Department 

of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control or a local police department, 

for more information. And they could organize the work themselves, without losing 

time or going to their superiors in Washington for approval. 

Based upon their discussions, this group could now create actionable intelligence 

for their agencies: the CIA might elevate the information to a higher level, to the 

director, or perhaps up to the president. Through local contacts in Seattle, the FBI 

would have the option of notifying local police, so they could watch for activities related to a potential plot.

3. In a joint press conference on May 26, 2004 with FBI Director Mueller, 

Attorney General Ashcroft informed the public that Al-Qa‘ida is ‘‘almost 

ready to attack the United States’’ and that ‘‘disturbing intelligence indicates Al-Qa‘ida’s specific intention to hit the United States hard.’’ Attorney 

General Ashcroft added, ‘‘credible intelligence from multiple sources indicates that Al-Qa‘ida plans to attempt an attack on the United States in the 

next few months.’’ However, on the very same day Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Ridge noted that the ‘‘continuous stream’’ of 

threat information is ‘‘not unlike what we’ve seen for the past several 

years.’’ He added that ‘‘We do not need to raise the threat level to increase 

security. Right now, there’s no need.’’ My question is what kind of oversight can be done to make sure that the dissemination of contradictory information from even the highest levels of government can be prevented in 

the future, so that the American public is not left to make vital decisions 

based on completely conflicting information?

ANSWER: A streamlined and reliable Threat Advisory System is a critical information tool to communicate with the public-at-large. Our Taskforce has so far mainly focused on information sharing within government and the intelligence community to prevent another terrorist attack, yet the same principles can be applied to 

an appropriate response system. As indicated above, we envisage the creation of ad 

hoc (or virtual) taskforces across agencies that would facilitate a co-ordinated and 

united response, including threat information to the public at large. 

QUESTIONS FOR THE RECORD FROM THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON-LEE FOR THE

HONORABLE R. JAMES WOOLSEY, AND THE HONORABLE JIM GILMORE

1. If the events leading up to September 11th were to happen today, how 

would the new information sharing capabilities be able to prevent the terrorist attacks? Specifically in relation the information about suspicious foreign nationals who were taking flight lessons, that was not properly shared between intelligence agencies. No response has been received.

2. Explain to me regarding the current system in place how hypothetically an intelligence item discovered in Houston would find its way to 
53

the proper national intelligence officers in Washington in order to prevent 

a potential terrorist threat in Seattle? No response has been received.

3. In a joint press conference on May 26, 2004 with FBI Director Mueller, Attorney General Ashcroft informed the public that Al-Qa‘ida is ‘‘almost ready to attack 

the United States’’ and that ‘‘disturbing intelligence indicates Al-Qa‘ida’s specific intention to hit the United States hard.’’ Attorney General Ashcroft added, ‘‘credible 

intelligence from multiple sources indicates that Al-Qa‘ida plans to attempt an attack on the United States in the next few months.’’ However, on the very same day 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Ridge noted that the ‘‘continuous stream’’ of threat information is ‘‘not unlike what we’ve seen for the past several years.’’ He added that ‘‘We do not need to raise the threat level to increase security. Right now, there’s no need.’’ My question is what kind of oversight can 

be done to make sure that the dissemination of contradictory information 

from even the highest levels of government can be prevented in the future, 

so that the American public is not left to make vital decisions based on 

completely conflicting information? No response has been received.

Æ